Taboos
by zizzy333
Summary: Some taboos are new and can still be overcome. Some taboos have been around for longer and are harder to overcome. Then some taboos are ancient history and simply can't be overcome. New halfas, new friendships, and Vlad's new plan are all labeled "Taboo".
1. Chapter 1

"Mom I don't want to go to school though!" A small girl with bouncy blond curls whined.

"Oh Grace-y, don't worry! It won't be scary." Said her mother who was packing her bagged lunch.

"Who said I was scared?" She replied back, crossing her arms.

Her mother just gave her a look that gave her the impression that she knows all. Grace uncrossed her arms and sighed. "But what if I don't make any friends?" She asked quietly.

The mother looked over at her daughter sympathetically and quickly went over to give her a hug. "Don't worry Grace. You'll do fine. I bet you will have at least one friend by the end of the day." She said kissing her forehead. She knew it was hard for her to adjust to the new city. She was only seven.

Grace smiled at her mother and looked at her new Hello Kitty watch and gasped. "Mom! We're late! It's already eight forty!"

"No sweetie that's a twenty. It's eight twenty, and we _are_ going to be late if you don't hurry up. Are you ready to ride the big girl bus?" Her mom asked. Grace nodded enthusiastically. "Okay, get your backpack and I will see you after school." Her mom said, giving her the bagged lunch.

"Okay! Bye mom!" Grace said, quickly pecking her mom on the cheek and running to get her Dora the Explorer backpack. As she closed the door their apartment door, she felt a new since of pride, going all the way to the bus stop all by herself, but as soon as the feeling struck her, another one washed over.

What if she didn't make any friends? It was already a few weeks in to the school year and everybody there has probably already has their group of friends. Would she be made fun of like she was in her last school? She just wanted to move back to Florida—the real place she belonged. She had friends there. Just because her daddy had to move for work didn't mean he had to take the whole family! But he did, and now here she was in a strange new city. She was surprised when she looked up and already found herself at her bus stop.

So she waited. And waited. And waited. After about ten minutes she turned back to ask her mom for a ride, but suddenly she heard it. She turned back around and saw a dirty bus pulling up to her stop. She quickly got on it when the doors opened, but she stopped when she saw there were no seats left and that there was already two or three to a seat.

"Sit!" The bus driver demanded when Grace didn't move. She finally seemed to snap out of it and walked back. She went up to a seat and asked a boy a little older than her, "Can I sit with you?"

The boy blew a bubble before replying. "No."

"Oh… okay." She said feeling put down. She went to the next seat. "Can I sit with you?" The girl didn't reply, just turned up her earphones. She looked out at the sea of heads. They all seemed to be staring at her like she was a monkey in a cage. She quickly sat down with the girl. As long as she continued to ignore her, she would be okay. Luck seemed to be down on her though.

"Who said you could sit here?" The girl spat. "Get out." She said pushing her off of the seat.

Great, she wasn't going to make any friends here either. She felt herself starting tearing up she got back on her feet and wiped the moisture out of her eyes. She finally went to the very back where a boy with rather large glasses was sitting alone. "Can I sit with you?"

"No." He stated and quickly looked away.

"But there are no more seats on the bus!" She exclaimed, exasperated.

He looked at her and then looked around and indeed saw there were no more seats. "Fine." He sighed and scooted over. She sat down and didn't say anything else for the rest of the bus ride.

When she got to school it wasn't any better. The only person that acknowledged her existence was the teacher. She was nice, but she always had other things to do. The other kids already had their friends and didn't seem to notice her existence. When she tried going up to a group at recess they all just stared at her until she left.

It looked like her mom's promise was an empty one. She wasn't going to have any friends by the end of the day, and with how things were going, by the end of the year either.

She missed Florida so much. Suddenly she had an idea. She quietly slipped past the recess supervisor and went inside the school. The teachers were all at lunch. Good. Now she needed to fine the boiler room. She decided to start with the first door she saw. She pressed her ear to it. When she didn't hear anything, she peaked it open a crack. It was a janitor's closet. She moved passed the decorated doors, knowing those were classrooms. She quickly found what she was looking for.

She opened the metal door and saw a bunch of strange machines. It was a bit spooky so she hurried past them. She finally found the staircase leading up and went up them, and opened the door at the top. The sunlight blinded her for a second, but then she walked out, letting the door close behind her.

With her apartment in Florida, they owned the very top floor, so they got the roof as well, and they set up lawn chairs on it and when ever Grace was feeling sad or depressed, she would go up and just look at the clouds.

Now she looked around her it seemed like a nice enough place. There wasn't anything too repulsive. She felt her shoulders relaxing and her worries ebbing away, like she left them all down below. She quickly found a spot where she could lay down and look at the clouds. She put her hands behind her head and smiled. Nothing could bother her now.

Or so she thought. Suddenly she heard someone yell out in pain. She whipped her head around to see two figures… flying? She rubbed her eyes to see if she was seeing it right. They were still there when she opened her eyes again. One of them was a robot with his head on fire, except for the fire was green. He was smirking evilly down at a boy with white hair and a black and white lab suit on. He was holding his side and glairing up at the flying robot.

"Like my new toy whelp?" The robotic one said.

"Frankly, no." The boy replied and out of nowhere a glowing green orb appeared in his hands, and he threw it at the robot. It hit him and he was sent spiraling through the air. When the robotic one finally regained its balance, the missile that was on its shoulder was charred and no longer working. Grace looked at the fighting pair in wonder. What were these things?

"My new rockets!" The robotic one exclaimed after seeing the damage. Then he growled and the old rocket was replaced by a row of new ones. "That's the last time--" He was cut off when all of the rockets came to life. They were heading straight for the boy but Grace wasn't paying attention to him anymore. She was busy with the fact that the boy was standing in front of her, and when he suddenly disappeared, all of the rockets were heading for her.

She stumbled back in a blind panic and suddenly the ground just seemed to end. She opened her eyes and found herself falling. She had fallen off the roof. She screamed.

As the ground seemed to rise up beneath her she realized she was going to die. 'I don't want to die!' she thought. 'I'm to young!' Before she could think anything else, she abruptly stopped and with an "Oof!" and the next thing she was flying back up to the roof. The boy with silver hair saved her.

He gently put her down on the middle of the roof and asked worriedly, "Are you okay?" Grace's mind momentarily shut down and she looked up at the boy with a total loss of words. It didn't last long though.

"Watch out!" She yelled as she saw the robot fire something else at the boy. It was too late though, and he was blasted back. Grace gasped put her hands over her mouth. The boy skidded to a stop and groaned. He didn't get back up. Grace almost ran over to him to see if he was all right by the robot beat her to it.

"You can't win them all Ghost Child." He said leaning over his body. Grace did a double take. 'Ghost child?' they were ghosts?!? Before she could think anything else the boy… or the ghost suddenly whipped out a… soup thermos? "I must be dreaming." Grace stated to herself. Suddenly a blue vortex seemed to suck the robot ghost in to the thermos and the ghost boy put a cap back on it.

He sighed in relief. Then he wearily glanced over at Grace. She froze. The boy then walked over to her. The ghost was coming after her now! She panicked and looked around for an escape. There was none, except for the trap door she came out of. She sprinted over to it for dear life and tried to yank the door open. It was locked. She kept at it though, as if it would magically open. Then she pounded on the door and yelled, "Help! Help me!"

She looked back at the ghost who was also frozen now. She pressed herself against the door and yelled, "GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Finally the ghost unfroze. "Okay! Okay! I was just going to see if you were alright!" He said, putting his hands up as if surrendering. He backed away.

Grace looked at the ghost suspiciously. He sighed, "Don't worry, I'm used to that reaction." He looked a bit saddened by it. Grace felt a pang of guilt. He did save her life, after all… even if he was the same kind of thing that was in her closet at night. She let guard drop a little, but when she looked back up he was gone.

She was alone. At first it was just a fact until she realized she was stuck on the roof. For a second Grace panicked again. How was she going to get down? Her question was answered when suddenly the door opened and out stepped the ghost boy. "I thought you were going to need some help with getting down, so I unlocked it for you."

She looked over him. He didn't seem very scary. The ghost she heard about were evil and make-believe. "Are you really a ghost?" She asked unbelievingly.

The boy winced at the question. "Uh- yeah. Pretty much." He replied.

"You don't seem very scary though." She stated.

"That's because I'm not trying to be scary. I'm a good ghost." He said shrugging.

"A good ghost?" She repeated, and he nodded. Suddenly a thought struck her. "Like Casper?"

"Like who?" He asked confused

"Casper the friendly ghost!" She elaborated, surprised he hadn't heard of him.

"What? My name is Danny Phantom…" The ghost called Phantom replied, his eyebrows knitted together.

Grace sighed giving up. "Never mind. My name is Grace."

"Oh!!! I get it now! Casper the friendly ghost! The one my parents always made me watch growing up! How could I forget?" He exclaimed. There was a pause. Suddenly he looked back down at her, grimacing. He had slipped a bit.

Grace blinked. He had parents? No, he used to have parents. He was dead now. 'That's kind of sad!' she thought. "Do you ever see your parents?" She asked him, almost timidly.

He winced again. "Uhh—yeah…"

"Oh, well then it isn't that bad!" She said.

"Well, actually, they don't know it's me." He corrected, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

"Why don't you tell them?" She asked.

"… Umm, because they hate ghosts, I guess. They especially hate me, probably even more than everybody else in this town does." He said wearily. Why was he spilling all of this to a little girl? There was a pause. "Why are you on the roof?" He asked suddenly, as if it finally struck him as odd.

Grace opened her mouth, but then closed it again. Suddenly she walked to the edge of the roof and looked over the kids. Phantom cocked an eyebrow and followed her over. After a moment she said quietly, "Well… when I can look down at everybody, it feels like all of my problems fly away on the wind. When I am above all of it… I feel free." Phantom nodded knowing exactly what she meant. "And I don't have any friends. I'm new."

That took him as a surprise. "Oh." Was all he was able to say. He knew how she felt. Before he met Sam and Tucker he was an outcast too. He still was, but it was a lot more bearable with his friends. "Well, I'm sure that you will make friends soon."

After a pause Grace seemed to brighten a bit. "Well, actually I already have one friend. You!"

Phantom froze. "Oh! Yeah! Me… okay."

"Do you come here often?" She asked.

"Not unless there's a ghost attack." Her shoulders slumped. "Why?" He asked.

"Because I thought we might be able to meet up here." She replied sadly.

"Oh." He said again. This was really getting awkward fast, even if she didn't notice. Sure she was a cute little kid, but he didn't want to skip lunch everyday. "Well there are a lot of ghost attacks around here, so I'm sure we will see each other soon." He said, trying to comfort her.

"Okay!" She exclaimed, happy again.

Suddenly the bell rang and they both winced. "I'm late!" They both cried.

"Bye Phantom!" Grace said hurriedly and opened the door and ran back in to the school.

"Bye!" He said back taking off towards Casper High.

-Later that day-

"Mooo-ooom!" Grace called closing the door behind her. "I'm home!"

Her mom appeared around the corner. "How was your first day?" She asked helping her take off her backpack.

"It was awesome! Well at first it stuck, but then I met a friend at recess!" Grace said, already having decided to leave the part out about the roof and the fight and the whole ghost thing.

"I told you that you would have a friend at the end of the day! So what's her name?"

"It's actually a boy. His name is Danny Phantom!" She exclaimed.

"Oh really? What a strange last name!" She said mostly to herself. "Well come on, I made you some cookies!"

Grace then skipped off excitedly into the kitchen.

-midnight-

Danny Phantom flew up to his bedroom window and looked in to his room, checking if the coast was clear. He quietly groaned when he saw his mom sitting on his desk chair, looking both worried and mad. She was expecting him to sneak in through the bedroom window. He looked at the clock sitting on his desk. It was two hours past his curfew. He was doomed. He floated back down to the sidewalk and changed back to Fenton form. He had to do it the hard way.

He walked up the steps to his house and tried to open the front door quietly. When the space was big enough he slipped in and closed it quietly behind him. Then he noticed that he was consumed in a rather large shadow. He gulped and turned around to face his dad, with his arms crossed and his face expecting an answer.

"Uhh… hi dad!" Danny said with a false cheeriness, trying to sound like nothing was wrong.

"MADDIE HE'S BACK!" Jack yelled up the stairs. Then he turned back to Danny and asked, "Do you know what time it is?"

"Ten?" Danny asked. His dad just looked at him disbelievingly. Danny sighed. "Okay okay, it's twelve. I'm sorry! I can explain!"

"Then explain yourself young man." His mom said, coming down the stairs.

Danny cringed and said, "Well actually I can't. But can I go to bed… it's been a long day for me…" He said. His parents looked him over properly for the first time. He had dark circles under his eyes and bruises on his arms and a large one on his face.

Immediately they were worried. "Honey, what happened to you?" His mom asked, gently touching his face.

Danny drew away sharply and said nervously, "Oh that… that's nothing, don't worry about it."

"Is it that Dash kid?" His mom asked.

"No, no nothing like that…" Danny said, looking around the room as if trying to find an escape.

"Was it a GHOST?!?" His dad yelled excitedly.

"No!" Danny replied quickly. Then he sighed, he looked as if he could collapse from exhaustion. "Can I go to bed now? Thanks." He said, running up the stairs with out an answer.

His parents just stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up the staircase. Then his mother sighed. "I'm worried about him." She stated.

Jack rubbed her back comfortingly. "I wonder what he dose in his free time. He always comes home beat up and exhausted… but I can't really see him in a gang or anything. I just don't know what to think…"

Jack nodded and said, "Don't worry, Danny's a good guy, he'll pull through."

Maddie just closed her eyes and whispered, "I hope so."

As soon as Danny closed the door he collapsed on to his to his bed, but he wasn't able to sleep. He had to many too many thoughts buzzing around his head. He had caught six ghosts since lunch, except what Skulker said worried him the most.

He delivered him a message to him, saying that Vlad said to tell him that he was coming soon to kill his father, make him Vlad's apprentice, and to take Maddie. Right after he said that, Vlad's bird appeared and told Skulker that he misunderstood and that he was supposed to keep Danny from knowing that and instead just distract him when Vlad gave the signal. 'There goes Skulker's day job.' He thought.

So Danny just had to make sure he. was on the lookout, because when Vlad comes to Amity, it's never a good thing. Finally he fell in to a restless sleep.

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TBC…

Hey guys! I'm back! Sorry I haven't updated Tornado in forever… but I've been too busy writing this one! And this one is really kind of complicated. It's two different plots intertwined into one story. One is with Grace and the other one has to do with Vlad…

Hopefully it'll all come in to a full circle by the end.

Anyways please tell me what you think of it so far!


	2. Chapter 2

SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY!

Gawd even I've forgotten the plot line. Umm (looks back) … ahem:

So a little girl named Grace met Danny Phantom and now considers them good friends while Danny's parents are starting to get worried about him and Vlad is back to scheming. There's chapter 1 in a nutshell!

Here's chapter 2!

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The next morning Danny woke to his alarm beeping. He was tempted to throw an ectoblast at it. He didn't want to go to school. Danny slowly got out of bed and sluggishly took a shower. Then he carefully put on his jeans and white shirt and went down to eat breakfast.

Danny went to the cabinet to grab some fruit loops, yawning as he passed his mom and dad in the kitchen. "Good morning Danny." His mom greeted in a high-pitched morning person voice. His dad just sat there and sipped his coffee, looking dead. Danny sat down across from him and pored his cereal. He obviously did not inherit his mother's love for the morning.

Jack looked over his son, tiredly. The bruises that were there last night were gone. 'That's strange' he thought. Suddenly his wives high-pitched voice penetrated the room again. "Oh yeah, Danny, last night your dad and I came to an agreement on your punishment. You are grounded to the house this weekend." Danny groaned, and slumped down in his chair further. He knew he could always slip out intangible and invisible if he needed to, but he always felt bad about it.

Danny quickly finished his cereal and grabbed his book bag for school, slipping a thermos in there just in case. "I promised to meet Sam and Tucker at the bus stop so I'm leaving." Danny stated, in a bad mood from getting grounded.

"Bye sweetie! Have a good day at school!" His mother yelled in that morning voice again. His dad winced and the shriek, but then went back to looking dead. Danny turned away and had to chuckle. His dad would start waking up soon, and become the over excided man he really was.

Danny went outside and looked around. It looked abandoned, so he threw up his arms and yelled, "Goin' Ghost!" and two blue rings appeared at his waist and separated up his torso, showing a winged DP. Then when it got to his arms and legs they split apart, changing his jeans and sleeves in to a black spandex suit but the most interesting transformation was his head, his eyes turned from stunningly blue to a ghostly green and his raven black hair turned into a shining silver.

No longer known as Fenton, Danny Phantom jumped up into the air, and flew towards Sam and Tucker's bus stop, while inside the Fenton household an alarm went off, showing a ghost was near.

"GHOST!!!" Jack exclaimed, suddenly showing signs of life.

Maddie ignored it though and said, "Oh Jack, you know that alarm goes off every morning when Danny walks out. It's been broken ever since we got the portal working." Jack sat back down and started mumbling about how unfair life was.

-At lunch-

Danny picked through his lunch, trying to find something edible in it. He had already found a quarter and a piece of rubber in his meal, and he didn't want any more surprises. Then he found a sharp piece of metal in it. He held it up to Sam and Tucker. "Guess this is why they call it meatloaf surprise." He stated, putting it in the little pile of things he found.

"See, that's why I enjoy salads… nothing surprising can pop out of these." Sam said pointing to her tray.

Tucker looked down at it and made a face. "Yeah, Sam, I enjoy meat, but that is just gross." He said, pointing to her fork, right before Sam put it in her mouth. She stopped and looked at it and found a little worm.

Sam turned white, then green. "That. Is. So. Gross!" She practically yelled. Tucker started to laugh, followed by Danny. "It's not funny! I could have eaten him! That would break my all veggie streak!"

But that didn't make them stop. What did was Danny's ghost sense going off. "Oh no…" He said, and then he sighed. "I have to go take care of this. It's probably the box ghost again. You guys stay here, I'll call if I need back up." Then he ran to the bathroom and transformed.

Soon he was above the school looking for the ghost. He didn't see anyone. He flew forward a bit, and scanned the area. Nothing. Whatever was here was gone now. He turned to get back to lunch, but heard the bell ring. If he hurried he could make it back to Mr. Lancer's English in time. Suddenly something hit him over the head and he cried out, his vision going black for a second. The blow sent him hurtling towards the ground. 'Well, sorry Mr. Lancer.' He though. He quickly pulled up before he made contact and looked up at his offender. There stood Plasimus.

Danny looked at him in confusion. He thought that Vlad would lay low for a while and wait until he forgot the information and when the time came, surprise him. Not come the next day. Vlad apparently saw his train of thought and chuckled. "And that is the brilliance of my plan boy, you thought I would come sometime far off in the future, not today, and that is why I am called an evil mastermind."

Danny shook himself out of his thoughts. "Dude, are you seriously back for the whole take my mom, kill my dad, and make me your apprentice thing … because if you are then you really need to get a hobby. Join a knitting club or something." Danny suggested.

"I promise to join that as soon as I get a cat." He replied sarcastically, brushing the comment off. "And plus I am not here for you. Come now Daniel, we need to make a scene."

"Wha—" but he was cut off when suddenly a pink ectoblast was thrown at him. He quickly made a shield and the blast was rebounded back to Plasimus. He dodged it. Danny quickly changed tactics and flew towards him, trying to get a few punches in, but Vlad just grabbed his outstretched hand and with a snap of his wrist he flung Danny back down to the pavement.

Danny grinded his teeth together and then sunk through the cement. He then came up behind Vlad and was able to punch him in the small of his back, causing him to fly forward into a building. Plasimus growled and flew back up to eye level. "I see we've been practicing," he stated almost absentmindedly while firing a series of ectoblasts at Danny.

"Oh you've noticed!" Danny replied, rolling his eyes while dodging them, but suddenly he was hit with one and sent tumbling towards the elementary school. He crashed through a window and skidded to a stop in what looked like first grade classroom. 'There's my luck for you.' Danny thought looking out at the frozen class. It felt like two deer caught in the headlights, neither Danny nor anyone in the class moving.

Suddenly Plasimus phased through the wall and picked Danny up by the collar of his suit. "It's called sarcasm Daniel." He stated, as if nothing had changed. Suddenly he turned back to the frozen class. "Boo." He said sounding amused. Just like that the whole class screamed and ran for the door.

Amongst the kids running towards the door, he recognized the kid he saw yesterday, and she cast him a worried look mingled with an unreadable expression before she ran out. But then Danny figured it out. She was happy to see him. Before the teacher left, she quickly pulled the Ghost Alarm lever, signaling the Fenton's to come. Danny groaned.

Finally Danny took action and phased out of Plasimus' grip and quickly swung an uppercut at his jaw, sending him flying in to the wall. He retaliated by sending an ectoblast at Danny that sent him across to the other wall. Danny closed his eyes and concentrated, and when he opened his eyes again they were glowing blue. Danny then jumped on to the teachers desk and sent an ice blast at Plasimus. Taken by surprise, Plasimus was literally frozen in place.

Danny's eyes changed back to normal and he held his head, starting to feel drained. Plasimus finally broke himself out of the block with ectoplasm blazing from his hands. "Impressive. But can you do this yet?" He asked multiplying in to five of himself.

"Five?!" Danny exclaimed.

"You're not the only one that's been practicing." They all said back at him, and before Danny could think of a plan, they charged. They all blasted him from different directions and Danny couldn't stop the scream that tore from his throat. After he fell to the ground, smoking, one grabbed his arm and threw him at the wall and the next thing he knew, he was outside. The five Vlad's were close behind; flying through the hole he created in the wall.

Danny tried to get up but he was too weak. The first one that reached him took his arm and sent shockwaves through his body, causing him to scream again. When he fell back to the ground, he was Danny Fenton and barely conscious. "See Daniel, like my pawn said, you can't win them all." Vlad said forming back in to one. He picked him up by the neck, cutting off his airway. Danny weakly tried to prod Vlad's hand loose. "I've waited for this for a long while. Good-bye Daniel." He said, charging up a large ectoball.

"GET AWAY FROM MY SON GHOST!" Came his dad's battle cry. He fired the gun he was carrying with him, but missed. Danny started to get dizzy from lack of oxygen.

"Aha, now my real plan gets put into action." Vlad said so only Danny could hear.

"Oh like you could even do anything about it!" Vlad spat back threateningly. Suddenly shockwaves were sent through Danny's body again and he cried out it pain. Then he knew no more.

Jack watched horrified as the ghost cast his sons limp body in to a wall without another thought. He was going to need backup, but first he had to see if his son was still alive. He started running over to Danny when he was hit with an ectoblast and thrown off coarse.

"Come Jack, let's dance." The Wisconsin Ghost said darkly. Suddenly he charged at him, and Jack aimed his gun at the ghost that did this to his son, but before he could fire the Fenton Bazooka, the ghost punched it out of his hands, and then uppercut him in the face. Jack was thrown back. He held his nose in pain. He realized that it was his first real combat fight with a ghost, and he was also quickly learning that it wasn't a good thing.

Thinking fast, he took out the Fenton Lipstick and the ghost halted in midflight. Then he broke down laughing. "Oh Jack you pitiful man. What are you going to do? Smear it on me?" He asked sarcastically, sending him in to another fit of laughter. Jack fired the laser causing the ghost to crash in to the upper floor of the elementary school.

While the ghost recovered from that Jack ran over to his son's side. "Danny? Danny-boy time for you to wake up now!" Jack exclaimed hurriedly, shaking him. No response. So Jack clumsily checked for a pulse, the way Maddie taught him too. He sighed in relief when there was one. Suddenly he remembered the ghost. Jack turned around to see the Fenton Bazooka pointed at him.

"What does this one do? Tear me apart molecule by molecule?" The ghost asked, looking over the machine he was holding

"Nope, and that thing can't hurt humans!" Jack said, thinking he had foiled his plan.

"Have you tested it?" Jack's proud smile wavered and died at that. "Can you imagine how much power has to go in to this thing?" 

"1700 volts of electricity is used in the creation of the mini ghost zone that forms and sucks the ghosts in!" Jack said excitedly, forgetting where he was for a moment. Then he frowned and said, "Oh poop."

The ghost smiled and spat, "Well I can't say it was nice knowing you Jack." And then he pulled the trigger. Danny's eyes shot open when he heard his dad's screams. Ignoring the pain he sat up and saw his dad being electrocuted and had an eerie green glow around him. Vlad's evil crackle faded away as he teleported back to Wisconsin to let the family wallow in their grief before he came back to comfort them.

"Dad!" He yelled and reached out and grabbed a hold of his arms to see if he could calm him down, but the electricity then reached out to him and he was flung across the street. His head hit the cement with a sickening crack. He was out again before he even hit the ground.

Jack collapsed in a heap, his body smoking. He slowly got to get to his knees. "Woah. Head rush." He said, rubbing his head with one hand. Then he looked across the street to see his son lying there. "How'd he get over there? Oh well, I better bring him home." He said, checking the area one last time for the ghost. He shrugged. "Could have been worse." Karma was about to bite him in the butt.

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Danny awoke to the moon shining through his bedroom window. He rolled over to try to get back to sleep but pain shot through his entire body. "That's why I don't fight when I'm not in ghost mode." He said to himself. Very slowly, he got up. It felt like he just reactivated the Ghost Portal. Using the wall for support, he shuffled over to his dad's room to see if he was all right. Suddenly his ghost sense went off. Tensing, he opened the door without knocking and went in.

He saw a rather large ghost standing in front of the mirror, he had black and silver hair and a girly blue and silver spandex on. Noramally Danny would have poked a little fun at that, but what worried him was that his dad was nowhere to be found.

"Hey, who are you?" Danny asked irritably.

The ghost whirled around, suddenly nervous. "D- Danny!"

"I know my name, thanks. What did you do with my dad?" He asked, taking a step forward showing that he meant business.

The ghost didn't say anything. His eyes danced around the room looking for an escape.

"What did you do? Where is he?" Danny growled ready to go ghost at the first sign of something wrong. The ghost suddenly sighed and sat down on the bed.

"I am- or I was your dad." The ghost said looking back to the mirror.

Danny blinked. "What?"

"I brought you home after the fight with the Wisconsin Ghost. He hit me with the Fenton bazooka. I didn't realize that I was a ghost until I passed the mirror."

Danny looked the ghost over again. Big, bulky, in a lab suit… "Dad?"

His dad shook his head. "Not anymore. I'm just a ghost."

"Wait a second. I'm confused." Danny stated.

"Like I said the ghost got me with the bazooka when I went to save you. I'm dead."

Danny paused. "The Fenton Bazooka? You mean the one that creates a mini ghost zone portal thingie that sucks the ghost in?"

"That pretty much sums it up." His dad said, lying down with his feet still dangling off the edge of the bed.

"Oh no." Danny said, suddenly remembering the fight. If it created a mini ghost portal… and it electrocuted his dad…

Danny almost hesitantly went over to his dad and checked for a pulse. Just as he thought, there still was one. Danny gave a sigh of relief, but then winced. This was going to put his secret in jeopardy.

His dad was only half ghost.

"Look dad—" Danny started out carefully, "If you were zapped with just raw electricity, it should have killed you."

"I'm dead Danny. It did kill me." He stated solemnly.

"That machine, the Fenton Bazooka, what does the electricity create?"

"What do you mean?" His dad asked, confused.

"Why do you use so many volts of electricity?"

"Because, it takes a lot to power up enough ectoplasm to transport a ghost back to the ghost zone."

"So you're saying that the electricity is used to make ectoplasm?" Danny asked. Jack nodded. "So that's why when it hits a ghost, they are transported back with out being hurt, because they are made of the ectoplasm that the electricity carries. You were zapped with that same ectoplasm containing electricity."

"Yes, but what does this have to do with me being dead?" His father asked.

"I don't think you're dead." Jack looked at him as if he had gone crazy. "Before you say anything, just listen. Ectoplasm is the life energy of ghosts, and since you were zapped with it, it fused with your DNA and kept you alive. Like I said, if it was just raw you would have died, but I think you only half died. I think you are only half ghost."

There was a moment of silence. Then Jack started laughing. "Maybe you were bumped over the head too hard. It's impossible to be half dead and half alive."

"You're right. You're not dead. The ectoplasm that fused with your DNA just gave you ghostly ability's. I think you can change back to your human form…" Danny paused. "But of coarse I'm just guessing because how would I know half ghost exist?" Danny laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.

Jack thought about it a bit more seriously. "I don't think it's possible." Jack stated, sitting back up and slumping. "I've become the thing that I've always taught my family to hate, Maddie will never even look at me again. I don't know what I would do if I had to fight against her when I turn evil."

Danny rolled his eyes. "Check your pulse." He replied lazily.

It took him a while to find it on his wrist. When he did he jumped up. "How is this possible!?" He asked excitedly. Danny just waited for his reaction. "I'M ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!" He yelled.

"Dad, please don't yell." Danny pleaded, still resting against the wall and rubbing his head, eyes squeezed shut. He had a huge headache.

Then he looked around, wondering why nobody else in the house had woken up. "Wait… where's mom and Jazz?"

"Jazzy-pants is driving back from leaving Maddie to the airport."

"What? Why?"

"The SUMISALP Corporation gave her a all paid expense trip to Washington D.C. for a ghost hunting trip. Apparently all of the top ghost hunters in the world will be there… AND I wasn't invited." He pouted.

"The SUMISALP Corporation?" Danny asked. "That's new. Why did she leave so quickly?"

"One day offer kind of deal." Jack mumbled. "But I am still stuck on the I idea that I'M ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!" He yelled again, throwing his hands up in the air.

Danny took a deep breath. "Okay, but do you want to be stuck in ghost form forever?" Jack put his arms back down. "I have an idea of what you can do. Just try to think of what you looked like before this form. Like… umm envision your orange lab suit in your mind, and your graying hair…"

"Hey!!!" Jack whined.

"Just concentrate." Danny demanded.

Jack stood there for a moment staring off in to space. "This is stupid."

"You'll get the hang of it. Keep trying." Danny encouraged.

Jack stood there for another minute, and finally closed his eyes, really concentrating. Suddenly a blue ring appeared around his waist, one going up and the other going down, turning the baby blue back in to his manly orange and his jet black hair back to a dulling gray. Danny smiled when he saw that his dad was still concentrating with his eyes closed.

"Okay, you can stop now."

Jack opened his eyes. "Huh?" He turned and looked in the mirror. "I'm me again!" He yelled. "WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO!" He yelled punching the air in joy. "Thanks Danny-boy I was in a real rut there. How did you know all of that anyways?" He asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Uhh- Internet?" He almost asked.

"A perfectly good answer." Jack said patting him not so gently on the back. Danny grimaced. "Oh and another thing. Can we keep this between ourselves? I don't know how Maddie will react if she ever found out. Probably divorce me and turn me in to the government for lots of painful tests."

"Welcome to my world…" Danny mumbled.

"What was that?" Jack asked sharply.

"I mean- sure!" He replied, smiling innocently.

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Wow… sorry people… I forgot I posted this. Woops. That's a first. Well here is Chapter 2! Thanks Ali Phantom, pearl84 and purrbaby101!

My life is pretty hectic right now… I AM HAVING MY DRIVERS TEST TOMORROW! OMG! I honestly don't know if I will pass or not. Anyone have any funny driving stories for me? Sooth the nerves ya know? Haha

Reviews make me remember forgotten stories and apparently I have a horrible memory! Review please!


	3. Chapter 3

This is an updating miracle.

Summery up to this point:

Maddie and Jack are worried about Danny's past times, Danny meets a little girl named Grace, Danny gets into a fight with Plasimus and gets beaten and because of the fight, Jack gets turned into a half ghost like Danny. Also Maddie's gone on a ghost hunting trip to Washington D.C.

I think that's all.

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The wind slammed the front door shut. Jazz winced at the sound, but continued to take off her coat. It started to drizzle outside. It was pretty late. She knew that she was supposed to come straight home after dropping her mom off, but the airport had a public library next to it and she was extremely low on reading material. They had to finally kick her out at closing time. She heard a noise in the kitchen. It was probably her dad up for some midnight fudge. She tip toed over there and peaked her head in to see her dad.

"I'm home." She whispered. Her dad jumped and whirled around, dropping the apple he was eating on the floor. Jazz paused. Apple?

She sat down across from her dad as he said while taking calming breaths, "You _almost_ scared me Jazzy-pants! But no one can scare Jack Fenton!"

Jazz ignored the comment and looked at him suspiciously. "Dad, are you okay?" She asked.

"Yes! Of coarse I am! Why wouldn't I be?!" Jack stammered out nervously and rather loudly.

Jazz looked him over. "You look as pale as a ghost-"

"I SWEAR I'M NOT A GHOST!" Her dad exclaimed, cutting her off. There was an awkward pause while Jazz gave him a strange look. Jack quickly corrected himself. "I- I mean, I'm fine! Perfectly fine! Never better!"

She just shook her head, and said "I heading up to bed now. Goodnight."

On her way upstairs she decided to check on her brother. When she opened his door, he wasn't there. Jazz looked at the empty room disapprovingly. She knew very well he was out fighting ghosts. She decided to ask her brother later why their dad was acting so weird.

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"HE'S WHAT!!!" Sam yelled, jumping out of her seat at lunch the next day. Danny quickly pulled her down.

"Shh Sam! I don't want the whole world to know!" Danny quietly exclaimed as the people around them slowly stopped staring and started eating their own meal again.

Tucker spluttered. "But wha- I mean- how?!?"

"I thought you said you would call us if you needed backup!" She exclaimed between clinched teeth, hovering somewhere between suppressed fury and worried. "Now look what you've done! You could have killed yourself _and_ your dad!"

"I know." Danny groaned. "It's all my fault. I could have prevent this… and now my dad has to deal with all of this too." Danny said exasperatedly, putting his head between his hands.

Sam, realizing that she might have been a little hard on him, said, "No, I mean- Danny it wasn't your fault. I was just worried of what could have happened to you. Next time, call us. But I can't believe… your dad's half ghost…"

"I know." Tucker added in airily. There was a pause and finally Tucker voiced the phrase going through all of their heads. "Now what?"

"I have no idea. We talked again this morning and he said that he feels like a hypocrite being half ghost and hunting ghost at the same time. I told him that police catch robbers and there's nothing wrong with that, so I think that cheered him up a bit. Right now I'm just trying to help him control his powers without giving away my own secret."

"Are you going to teach him how to fight with his powers?" Tucker asked

"I don't know."

"Why not? It could give you a break. Like make him patrol at night and you can patrol in the day or something." Sam explained

"But what happens when he meets Phantom?" Danny asked quizzically.

"Oh…" Tucker winced.

"Not good." Sam agreed. Another pause. "Well, just know that we'll be here for you Danny." Sam said, and Tucker nodded as well.

Danny looked at both of them and smiled slightly. "Thanks guys," he said warmly.

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"Now class," said Ms. Dickson in an overly cheerful voice. "I'm going to pick a helper to hand out some paper-" Everybody's hand shot up. "Hold you horses!" She exclaimed, smiling. "Let me explain first.

"When you get your paper you're going to draw someone that means a lot to you, like your parents, grandparents, friend, or even your dog! Then when you're done, you can bring them home to show your parents okay? Now who wants to be my special helper?"

Grace's hand was the first up, mainly because she liked her teacher and being her special helper could be fun. "How about Sarah." Ms. Dickson said. The rest of the class groaned and put their hands down.

When Grace got her paper she looked down at it blankly. Who did she want to draw, her mom or her dad? Everybody else in her class paired up with people who were going to draw pictures of each other. Why would no one reach out to her? Why didn't she have any friends? Then she smiled. Someone _did _reach out to her. She started drawing.

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Danny opened the door quietly after he got home from school. He put away his backpack and went in to the kitchen to get a snack. His ghost sense went off as he walked towards the door, showing his dad was there. When he walked in, Jack was in his ghost form looking as if he was trying to change his suit's color with a new invention. It was still blue, but no longer baby blue, yet still girly looking.

Mumbling to himself he didn't see Danny walk into the kitchen. Then two things happened at once. First Danny, being a totally klutz, stubbed his foot loudly on the chair, causing him to drop his school bag on the ground and shake the whole kitchen. Jack immediately tensed and whirled around in an awkward battle stance. The next thing Danny knew, a ghost ray was coming at his head, fast. Danny toppled over, barely missing it. "Dad!" He yelled accusingly.

"Woah!" Jack yelled looking at his hand. He quickly looked under the table at Danny. "Are you okay?" He asked seriously. Danny nodded, getting up and brushing himself off, irritated at his dad for attacking him. "Well then THAT WAS AWESOME!" He yelled. "What was it?"

"It was a ghost ray." Danny replied a bit sharply.

"That sounds cool!" His dad exclaimed.

"It's a good offence, and as you gain more experience, you can make shields out of it too." Danny said without thinking, looking down at his bruised arm.

"Wow, you must spend a lot of time on the internet!" His dad said.

Danny looked up and blinked. "Uhh- yeah!"

"But why would I need to be in an offence while in ghost form? You mean… I could use these powers to fight ghost as some sort of ghostly powered super hero?!?" His dad asked, just realizing the possibilities.

Danny cringed realized he totally set himself up for this one. "Well… it's possible…" He said slowly. He could use the breaks after all…

"YEAH BABY!" Jack yelled tossing his hands in to the air. "I can be like all of the comics I used to read as a boy. You know, I always wanted to be a super hero when I was young… the excitement, the adventures, the glory…"

"Don't get too excited." Danny stated dully.

"What?? Why?" His dad asked, his mood dropping.

"Spider-Man, X-Men, and probably more that I can't think of right now are considered freaks, bad-guys, always put down publicly and stuff." Danny said, thinking of other super hero's that have some of the same problems as he does.

"But there's always Super-Man, and Wonder Woman who get to be famous!" His dad said.

"Wonder Woman?" Danny asked, raising an eyebrow. "You read those? Wait- I don't want to know." He decided, shaking his head.

"So Danny-boy, what do you say? Do you want to help me out because you seem to know more about half ghosts than I do?" Jack asked cheerily.

"What do you mean?" Danny asked, a bit nervous.

"Coach me!" His dad exclaimed, throwing his arms wide.

"Coach you?"

"Exactly!" Jack said jumping up and down. "So you'll do it! Great! Lets get started… right after I change this suit's color to something more manly…" Jack said, picking up the invention that he dropped and fiddling with it again.

Suddenly both of their ghost senses went off. "That's the second time! I had one of those when you came in too." His dad stated excitedly, not seeing Danny's. "What is it?"

"Uhh… umm… I'll be up in my room if you need me!" Danny said and rushed off. Jack shrugged and turned some knobs on his invention. Then he pointed it to himself and fired. His suit turned pink. He sighed, and tried again. Yellow. Getting closer… then he tried again and got a dark purple. Brilliant.

"Hey Danny!" He called running up the stairs and bursting into his room. "What do you think about this color?" But when he didn't get a reply he looked around and saw that Danny was no longer there, and his window was open. Confused, he changed back to his human form and went back down stairs to eat some fudge.

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Danny flew through the sky freely after catching Klemper, going in the general direction of his house, but not in any kind of rush. It was like the kid Grace said. Whenever he flew, it felt as if he left all of his cares and worries below.

"PHANTOM!!!" Somebody yelled. Danny halted in midair. Who would call him with that tone besides Paulina? He looked around and saw Grace sitting on a dirty apartment roof. He flew over and landed next to her.

"Hey!" He said good-naturedly, trying not to be awkward.

"Hi!" She exclaimed.

"How are you?" He asked. God he was so bad at this.

"I'm good! How are you?" Grace asked, totally oblivious.

"Umm—good. I… umm- I was just thinking about you!" Danny said, trying to strike up a conversation with whatever came to mind.

"Really?" She asked excitedly.

"Yeah, remember how you said last time that going on the roof kind of makes you feel like you leave everything below? I was thinking that it's kind of like that when I fly too." Danny explained.

"That would be so cool! You know… to be able to fly! I always have dreams about flying from building top to building top around the city, and you actually get to do it! Lucky…" She added on in the end.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool." Danny stated nodding. He looked down and saw that she was giving him puppy dog eyes. Oh no. She was begging for something…

"Well…" She stated.

"Well what?" Danny asked tentatively.

"Will you please will you take me flying?" Grace asked.

Danny paused. "Well- I don't know. It could be dangerous… and I don't have much time." The puppy dog eyes again.

"Please?!?"

"Your parents might not be okay with it… and I've got to meet someone soon and…"

"Pretty please?!?"

"Does it really have to be right now? I could probably take you later… but even then--"

Pretty please with sugar on top and little rainbow sprinkles and chocolate sauce and caramel sauce and gummy worms and crushed up Snickers and anything else you could think of putting on top?"

Danny sighed, fresh out of excuses.

"Please? Just for a second! I promise it won't take long." Grace said, giving him the biggest puppy dogs yet. Danny felt his resolve crumbling away.

They looked at each other for a moment. "Fine." Grace squealed. "Take my hand." Danny said. She quickly took it and Danny worked on extending his powers to her. Suddenly she felt weightless. When she realized she was floating a few inches off the ground she gasped.

"I'm flying!" She yelled. Danny smiled and lifted them a few more feet off the ground. "This is so cool!" She yelled up to Danny as if because they were flying it was harder to hear.

"Isn't it?" Danny asked smiling broadly. He let them hover for a moment longer before gently bringing them down. "I can fly you around town when I have more time."

"Why not right now?" She asked.

"Because I don't want your parents to think you randomly went missing. By the way… do they know you're up here?" He asked.

"Nope." Grace said without a hint of guilt. "Oh! That reminds me! I have a present for you!" She exclaimed and took a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and gave it to him.

Surprised, Danny opened it to see a picture of what was supposed to be him, he guessed. The grass was an squiggly green line and the sun had a face drawn it, and Danny, crudely drawn had a big smile on and was waving. "Wow! Thank you! I don't know what to say!" He exclaimed, touched.

"We were supposed to draw a picture about somebody that means a lot to us so I drew you!" Grace exclaimed. This didn't help Danny's speechless state. "Except for when everybody saw my picture, they didn't believe that I actually knew you." She said, a little down beat.

"Well… I really love the picture," Danny finally stated, "and you don't have to make the other kids believe if you know me or not. As long as we know the truth, that's all that really matters." He advised.

Suddenly a beep of some vehicle locking their doors was heard. Danny ignored it, but Grace tensed and ran over to the side of the roof. "Oh no! My mom's home early! I haven't cleaned my room!" Grace exclaimed. "I'll never make it on time!"

"Anything I can do?" Danny asked, wondering why she was panicking so much over a messy room.

"Umm… uhh… you could fly me down there!" Grace said. Danny realized what her scheme was.

"Okay. Fine." He said, going along with it. Grace tried not to smile. "What floor?" Danny asked.

"Second, and it's the last room to the right." Danny nodded and grabbed her hand. He turned them both intangible and Grace shrieked in delight.

Danny, knowing that is was about a six or seven story building, flew down through the building and stopped right outside her door. Her mom was already coming up the stairs. "Hurry!" She exclaimed and so Danny phased them through the door and Grace quickly led them to her room.

The front door opened. "Grace!" A woman's voice called.

"Yes mom!" Grace yelled from her room.

"Where are you?" Her mom asked.

"Cleaning my room!" Grace said glancing up at Danny.

"Okay, as long as you're working on it." Her mom said. Grace sighed.

"Thanks Danny!" She whispered. "Can I call you that? Or should I just call you Phantom?" She asked.

"You can call me Danny." He replied, smiling. "I'd better be going."

"Okay!" Grace exclaimed, and hugged him around the middle. "Thanks for letting me fly!"

"You're welcome." Danny said. Then he phased through the wall and flew off towards his house. Grace watched her best friend fly off through her window.

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Danny, having just gotten to his bedroom, transformed back human. He took the picture of him out of his pocket and put it in his dresser drawer. He ignored his ghost sense going off, telling him that his dad was nearby, and realized that he had forgot to tell Sam and Tucker about meeting Grace at lunch.

As he was digging through his backpack to find his cell phone, his dad walked by. When he saw Danny the laundry he had been carrying phased through his arms. "Hey! Where were you?" His dad asked.

"Right here." Danny replied.

"Not when I checked a few minutes ago." His dad accused.

"I was in the bathroom?" He almost asked.

"I was in there too." He stated narrowing his eyes.

"Which one?" Danny asked.

"The upstairs one."

"Well then that explains it! I was downstairs." Danny finished nervously.

"Oh." Jack said, forgetting about the pile of laundry in the hall and walking in to his room.

"Look! I was able to finally change the color!" He exclaimed, going ghost to show off his purple and black suit.

"Well, it's better than before." Danny stated.

"Can we start practicing now?" His dad pleaded.

"Now?" Danny asked wearily. Hid dad nodded excitedly. Danny sighed. "Ok." Jack jumped for joy.

"YES! TO THE LAB!" He yelled and dashed down the stairs. Danny walked behind him.

When they got to the lab Jack was still bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"Okay, dad. Let's start with the basics." Danny stated. This was going to be a long day. "As you know, some of the more basic things a ghost can do is—"

"Intangibility, invisibility, and flight. But I want to do stuff like that creep Phantom can! He can shoot ectorays-"

"Ghost rays."

"And he can shoot ice from his hand-"

"and eyes."

"And he has this yelling thing he does that can knock down buildings!"

"Ghostly wail. Wait- how did you know that last one?" Danny asked, thinking that his parents didn't know about that power. He didn't use it around them.

"I saw him once, fighting another ghost. About two weeks ago."

"Oh, you mean Ember. I didn't know you guys were there..." Danny said, thinking back. His dad shrugged. Luckily he didn't remember that Danny was supposed to be at the library that day so the comment passed unnoticed.

"Huh. Well anyways, it might take a while to get those powers. But like I said, we'll start with the basics. First, concentrate on flying. Becoming weightless. Stuff like that. It might help to jump at first. Just don't expect to hit the ground and you won't."

His dad nodded, excided. He closed his eyes and jumped. He landed with a thud. He got back up and tried again. _Thud_. And again, _thud_. Getting frustrated he started jumping up and down like a spring. _Thudthudthudthudthud_. Jack looked at his son, discouraged.

"You're not concentrating hard enough. You're just jumping. Just really think that you are floating off the ground. Put energy in to it." Jack closed his eyes again thinking extra hard. Nothing happened for a while. Jack opened one of his eyes and peaked out at his son.

"Keep concentrating!" Jack shut his eye again. Nothing happened for a while. Danny pulled up a chair. Right as he sat down though, Jack started to lift slowly off the ground. He hovered a foot above the ground, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Dad! Your flying!" Danny cheered on.

Jack opened his eyes, gasped, and fell back down.

"I flew!" His dad exclaimed.

"You need to keep concentrated if you want to stay up." Danny stated, "Try again."

Danny tried to stay excided for his dad, but he couldn't quite get the phrase, "this might take awhile," out of his head.

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TBC…

Here are your 10 pages! School's killing me. And I failed my drivers test. Since I go to a boarding school I'm not going to be able to drive again till Thanksgiving. Greeeat. Anyways got to go study for my 3 quizzes and test for Monday. Hooray! Not.

Question… any funny first day stories??

Review please! Peace.

Zizzy333


	4. Chapter 4

Heh... heh…

Since it's been so long since I updated I have a quick little review box here.

**-REVIEW-**

Grace is a little girl who believes that her best friend is now the famous Danny Phantom. Danny feels a bit bad for her and keeps running into her. However Vlad is scheming again, and came to Amity to battle Danny. (It's a bit A/U, Vlad was never mayor and obviously this takes place before PP) Danny looses pretty badly, but not as bad as his dad who joins in the battle. Jack gets turned into a half ghost, and now Danny is training him to be a "superhero". Meanwhile a company called SUMISALP invited his mom to go to a ghost convention in Washington DC…

AAANYwho I'm back with an update… really really late…

No Grace this time guys, I'm focusing on Danny and his mater et pater for people who take Latin. Even if you don't you can probably figure out what that means.

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Three hours later the father and son finally walked up stairs, exhausted.

"Well, it started off slow at first, but then you started to catch on. Now you've uhh… 'experienced' the basics, flying, intangibility, and invisibility, and also did them all at the same time, but that was by accident, but we're still counting it. You also learned that if you waste enough energy you revert back to human form." Danny summed up. Jack just nodded. "And you also learned how to concentrate for more than three seconds." Danny said waiting for his delayed reaction. Jack nodded.

"I think I am going to take a nap." He said, going up the stairs. Half way up, "Hey!!!" Danny chuckled and went into the kitchen to get dinner before patrolling. Meanwhile he wondered how his mom was doing. She hadn't called, but at least she left the SUMISALP company number, so that they could get a hold of her through that. Danny decided to give her a call. He dug through the kitchen drawers and finally found the pamphlet, and quickly dialed the number.

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Meanwhile, upstairs one more thought went through Jack's sleepy brain before he could drift off to sleep. He needed a superhero name. Suddenly he was trying to think of a name for himself. "The Specter!" No, how about… "The Ghost Destroyer!" Too weird… "Jack Phantom?" Nope, "Phantom" was already taken by Danny… ghost Danny that is. Not his son. But still… what a strange coincidence…

Speaking of Danny's he decided to take one last bit of advice from his son before he could fall asleep. As he neared the kitchen he realized that Danny was talking on the phone. He shrugged and decided to wait on the couch for him to finish.

Danny waited as it rang once, twice, three times… then someone finally picked up. "Why hello Daniel. I suppose you are calling your mother to inform her that your father is dead? What took you so long?"

Danny stood there speechless for a second but then his eyes glowed green. "Plasimus." He growled.

Jack stood up at the comment. Wasn't he the Wisconsin ghost? He started towards the kitchen but instead stopped. He took the phone next to the couch and quietly as he could covered the mouthpiece and listened to their conversation.

"SUMISALP?" Danny asked, and then Jack could practically see his son slapping his forehead. "Like DALV. Duh." He said to himself. The Wisconsin Ghost chuckled over the line. "Where is she? What did you do with her?" Danny growled.

Was this his son talking? The one who always ran away before Phantom could even get to the scene? Then he realized something. "She?" "Her?" What was going on? SUMISALP? Was his wife in trouble?

He forced himself to stay quite as he listened in on the conversation. "Can't you see that my master plan is falling in to place? Now with your stupid father dead and dear Maddie willingly by my side-"

Now Jack was sure they were talking about his wife, and he tensed and furrowed his eyes in confusion. "Willingly? Ha! Only in your dreams." His son replied mockingly. "And your plan hasn't worked out as well as you planned Plasimus. Dad is still alive."

There was a pause over the line. Something had gone wrong with the ghosts plan by him living? Great… now he was a goner for sure. The ghosts calm voice was not what Jack expected. "Oh so old Jack lives eh? We'll just have to see how long that lasts." Then there was a dial tone. Danny growled in frustration and Jack heard him kick a chair over. This was way out of Danny's character.

Jack carefully made his way over to the kitchen to see if Danny was okay. He was putting the phone back in his cradle and when he turned around his eyes were glowing green. When Danny saw Jack standing at the door, he jumped and hit his head on the corner of the cabinets, and him swearing loudly. Jack was so confused that he didn't even scold him. He wanted to know more about this ghost who kidnapped his wife and that was plotting on killing him AND why his son and that ghost were on first name terms.

After Danny regained his bearings he asked, "how long were you standing there?"

"Long enough." He replied. Danny's face drained of color. "What is going on?"

Danny stuttered "N-nothing!"

Jack narrowed his eyes, looking at his son. "Why does the Wisconsin Ghost have your mother?" Danny stood there, not sure how to reply when suddenly the strange blue mist emerged from both of their mouths.

Danny looked horrified for a second, and glanced nervously at Jack. Before his dad could ask what it was again, the Box Ghost emerged from the ceiling. Danny seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "GGGHHHHOOOOSSSTTT!" His dad yelled and closed his eyes and concentrated the way Danny had taught him, and slowly he changing into his ghost form. After he was fully transformed he was already panting with effort.

"What is this?" The Box Ghost asked. "You're a halfa too?" Danny winced behind his dad. He looked between Danny and Jack confused. Jack was too excided and tired to care and Danny just decided to not say anything. The Box Ghost finally shrugged. "No matter… now you shall both feel the wrath of my box army! Come to me my cubic friends!" The Box Ghost yelled, and suddenly every box that was in the kitchen came to life and started floating behind the box ghost threateningly.

Jack looked back at his son, suddenly panicked. "Whatdoido?!?!" He asked quickly.

Danny looked at him disbelievingly. "Just go intangible when the boxes come at you!" He said, quickly going behind the chair to take cover. Suddenly all of the boxes were flung at his dad, and Jack couldn't go intangible quick enough. He was thrown back into the wall, all of the boxes burying him. It took a while for his dad to get up.

As soon as he was up and flying again, Jack said "NO GHOST CAN HURT A FENTON! TAKE THIS YOU—" but suddenly more boxes bombarded him and he slid down the kitchen wall again. The Box Ghost was grinning like mad, happy to be winning a fight for once. Danny covered his face with his hands. His dad was losing to the Box Ghost. He sighed as the process repeated itself.

Danny finally got up and walked out of the room. Then he walked up the stairs and grabbed an empty Fenton thermos from under his bed and in no particular rush went back down to the kitchen. His dad was still losing, and he seemed to be on the edge of unconsciousness.

Danny simply uncapped the thermos and pressed the capture button, sucking the unsuspecting Box Ghost in. After that was finished, he went over to the pile of boxes that was his dad and helped him up out of the mess. His dad smiled weakly at him and said, "Th- Thanks Dan… your going to have to teach me how to do that." And with that he fell down, turning back human. By the time he hit the floor he was already snoring.

"Uhh- dad?" Danny asked, taping his shoulder. No response. Danny shook his head, bewildered. Only his dad could actually fall asleep right after a fight. Danny put the thermos down on the counter and looked around the kitchen. It was a disaster. Danny transformed and turned back to his sleeping dad. He picked him up under the armpits and turned them both intangible and went through the ceiling. He tucked his dad into bed and then flew back downstairs, ready to tackle the mess in the kitchen. The whole time, plotting ways to get his mother back.

A few hours later, the kitchen was clean and he had come up with a plan. It wasn't the best, but he didn't have many options at this point. He called Sam and Tucker and told them all of the recent events and even told them about Grace, but he didn't tell them about his plan. He didn't want them worried. Finally he looked at the clock. It was midnight. He shuffled up to his room. He made sure to check on his father. He was still out like a light. Finally Danny got in to his own bed and drifted off to sleep.

It felt like he hadn't even closed his eyes when his alarm went off at seven the next morning. Danny groaned and rolled over, trying to ignore it. Jazz had the brilliant idea of putting the clock across the room, so Danny would have to get up to turn it off. This was his third clock, the last two went off on a weekend, and he quickly destroyed those with a well-aimed ghost ray.

Finally Jazz came in to his room, turning off the alarm for him. "Danny, time to go to school." She stated shaking his leg.

He cracked an eye open. Then he remembered last night. "That's what you think." Danny mumbled in to his pillow.

"Humm?" Jazz asked.

"I'm getting up." He said, hanging a foot out of bed, and then the other.

"Hey Danny?" Jazz asked, sitting down on his bed. "Have you noticed dad's been acting… strangely?"

"No." Danny said bluntly, rubbing his eyes and stretching.

"Haven't you noticed that he hasn't invented one new invention yet? That he's really clumsy? … He was even eating an apple the other day!" Jazz exclaimed.

Danny finally sat up. "He was eating an apple?" Danny asked. "That is weird."

"See? I think something's up. Especially with mom gone..." Jazz stated.

"Yeah, _whatever you say Jazz_. Can you get out of my room now so I can change?" Danny asked, finally getting up.

Jazz walked over to the door. "Don't fall back asleep." She warned, and closed the door behind her. Danny quickly got changed and tried his best to smother down his bed head. Then he went down stairs to eat some Fruit Loops.

While Jazz was up stairs brushing her teeth, Danny sat across the table from his dad, who was stirring cream in to his coffee. Suddenly the spoon he was using phased out of his hands and Jack looked a bit lost for a moment. Danny chuckled. "How are you feeling?" He asked.

Jack picked up his spoon and replied, "Like I've been hit with a truck." Danny nodded, knowing exactly how he felt. "I want to talk to you after school about the phone conversation you had yesterday with that ghost."

Danny nodded. "Speaking of school I should probably go now." He said and picked up his backpack. "Bye dad." He waved, and went out the door. Soon after he left, the ghost alarm went off and Jack looked around wildly.

Danny was off to Wisconsin.

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The trip was much shorter when you fly, Danny decided. The whole time, Danny was trying predict the different scenarios he could possibly get in. His plan was simple. He would fly in, grab his mom, fly out. He didn't want to fight Plasimus again.

What kind of situation was his mom in? Was she locked in a dungeon? Was she being forced to stay in Vlad's castle? Was she being tricked and thought that she was in D.C.? How would his mom react to seeing Phantom? Scared? Mad? Would she struggle? What would happen if Vlad caught him? That's one thing he didn't want to think about. Would his dad figure out he skipped school? What happened if another ghost attacked him? Danny wouldn't be there to help…

Finally Vlad's castle came in to view and he slowly descended. He landed behind some bushes and stretched. He didn't like long flights. Finally he turned invisible and intangible and flew in to the castle.

No matter how many times he's been in it before, he would always be awed by the vastness of the place every time he went in. Suddenly his ghost sense went off. Vlad was near. Danny winced. That means that Vlad's ghost sense went off too.

Danny decided to start from the top and go down, so he phased through the ceiling to the top floor. It took him a while to look through everything. There were six bedrooms with a bathroom for each, and then there were two large formal rooms with couches and a fire place, along with a huge plasma screen TV and small collections of books on one end of the room. The place was deserted.

Then he went down a floor and started looking. There was the huge kitchen with an even larger dining room, a ballroom that Vlad hosted the reunion in, the entryway of course, and the library. These were all deserted too. That left one option.

Danny phased down to his secret lab. The lab was glowing an eerie green, thanks to the ghost portal at the end of it, and all of the computers were turned off. There was nobody there either. Danny at this point was confused. Vlad was here, his ghost sense detected him, so he couldn't be in his Colorado house could he? Danny suddenly heard a noise. It sounded like… chains rattling. Danny's eyes glowed green. If Vlad had his mom locked up…

Danny shook his head. He had to figure out where the noise came from. It sounded like it was near by, but there were no doors leading anywhere else. There it was again! He was positive it was coming from the other side of the wall. He floated over to it and phased his head through it, almost expecting to see dirt, except what he saw was another room. There were no doors of windows, and it was fashioned like a medieval dungeon, except Danny wasn't looking at all of that.

He quickly went all of the way in and became visible. "Mo—Maddie?" Danny asked, looking at the figure struggling in the corner. She appeared disheveled, struggling with her chains wrapped around her wrists that were creaking in protest. Her black belt didn't go to waste though: the metal bolted to the wall seemed quite a bit looser.

She twirled around immediately with an angry glare on her face. When she saw Danny, she was so surprised that she lowered her defenses to show her bewilderment. "Phantom?" She seemed to examine him for a moment and then the glare was back. "I bet you're teamed up with that Wisconsin Ghost aren't you?" She shot.

"What? No!" He exclaimed loudly, but then cringed. "I'm here to get you out of here." He stated in an urgent whisper. His mom looked at him disbelievingly and was about to protest but he cut her off before she could even start. "I'm not always the bad guy you know." He said softly. She closed her mouth. There was an awkward silence. "Well if I'm going to get you out of here, we need to hurry. I don't want Plasimus to—"

"Don't want Plasimus to what dear boy? Catch you in the act? Well it's too late for that." Said a disembodied voice. Suddenly Danny was thrown into the opposite wall, and behind him appeared Plasimus. Danny bit his lip and got up, trying to think of a plan. He didn't think he could beat Plasimus with out a major fight that would leave him with enough energy to get him home.

"You didn't let me finish." Danny shot back at him, a smile playing on his lips to hide the rising panic. "I was going to say I didn't want Plasimus to figure out we secretly signed him up for the knitting club… well surprise!" Danny said, firing up a ghost ray of his own and shooting it at him.

It missed, but it was enough for Plasimus to get angry. He flew down and punched Danny into the ground, earning a gasp from Maddie, still chained in the corner. She once again started struggling with her chains, this time with more vigor. Danny squeezed his eyes shut and kicked Plasimus off of him. He went flying in to the wall behind him. Danny slowly got up, his back cracking, and then he took to the air again. He wanted to stun Plasimus before he grabbed him mom and fled.

Danny shot a series of ghost rays at the recovering Plasimus who simply absorbed them all and shot an even bigger one back at him. Danny dodged out of the way with plenty time to spare, but then he realized his mistake.

His mom, who used to be standing behind him, was about to be hit with the deadly blast, and she knew it too. Frozen with horror she barely heard the Wisconsin Ghost's, "NO!"

Time seemed to be stopped as it sped towards his mother, and all sounds had a strange muffled echo. Danny made a decision. In the millisecond before the blast hit his mother, he dove in front of her, braced himself, and took the shot.

The sound came crashing back into his head as pain exploded in his chest. It hit him point blank and the force of the blow sent him flying back, and he yelled out as he hit the wall, slowly sliding down it.

The next thing Danny knew, two Plasimus' were hoisting him up and there was one standing in front of him, staring down at him evilly. His mom still stood in the background, recovering from the shock and absorbing what just happened.

Danny let his eyes glow green as the duplicates of Plasimus held his arms behind his back. "Did you really think you could get away with your little plan humm?" He asked calmly. In a fit of violence, his fist slammed in to Danny's stomach. Danny cried out and leaned over, trying to catch his breath.

Danny grinded his teeth together and glared back up at Plasimus. His archenemy laughed at him and said, "No stupid boy. I'm afraid that someone stronger," an uppercut, "faster," a side swipe, "and smarter" a two hand blow to Danny's back that knocked him from the arms of his captors, "will even have a chance rescuing her."

Danny lay on the ground, in to much pain to get up. "And do you want to know one more thing Daniel?" Plasimus whispered in to his ear, sending chills down his spine. "I no longer care if you become my apprentice or not. You've become a thorn in my backside and there's no redemption at this point… no matter how much you beg… basically I don't care if you live or die." Plasimus spat out, standing up.

He paused for a moment, as if thinking. "Actually, I would prefer the latter." Plasimus said, shrugging, and then smiling evilly. The next thing he knew, Danny was dangling in the air as Plasimus tightened his grip around his neck, the way he did three days ago. Danny gasped for air, struggling wildly, knowing what was coming next. Plasimus just smirked up at him and suddenly pain racked Danny's body. He screamed as shock waves were sent throughout him. This time Plasimus didn't stop.

The only thing that was going though Danny's mind was that he couldn't change back to human form, and he forced his shaking body to obey. Eventually he ran out of air, and he realized that he was going to die. No longer able to scream, his body twisted and convulsed uncontrollably.

Maddie watched in horror. She knew that if her captor didn't stop, Phantom would be cast in to obliteration. "Stop!" She yelled at Plasimus, but he either didn't hear her or ignored her. By this point she knew Phantom was on her side. If he wasn't he would have flown off to save himself. She tried to shake herself out of shock. Suddenly Phantoms back arched and he stopped screaming, his eyes closed tight, and she knew that this was it.

"STOP!" She screamed again, and this time she was sure he ignored her. She got as close to them as her chains allowed, and kicked out as far, and as hard as she could. She hit her captor in the stomach, winding him, and fortunately he was surprised enough to drop the smaller ghost.

"What are you doing?!" Her captor turned to her sharply. The look he gave her made her want to shrink back and go back into her invisible corner, but she stood tall.

"Please, leave him out of this! I don't know why you're keeping me here, but I know that he has nothing to do with it!" Maddie nearly yelled at him. She looked at the smaller ghost worriedly. His body was still shaking and his breathing was shallow. It was strange. When she left Amity, she hated him… she could have never foreseen her here protecting him.

"He has everything to do with it!" Plasimus yelled, his eyes glowing red. "Now would you please go back to your corner so I can finish him?" He more demanded than asked. Maddie stood her ground though.

"No." She growled, almost surprising herself. She wouldn't let this ghost die trying to save her.

All Danny knew was that the pain suddenly stopped and he was dropped to the ground, but his body was still having spasms, and he was gasping for air. He heard voices. He couldn't tell what was going on though. It felt as if he had cotton balls in his ears, but he was still in too much pain to care. Suddenly he remembered one of Jazz's rants. He swallowed heavily and started breathing deeper, trying to clear his mind. It worked. The sounds seemed to sharpen, along with the pain. He groaned softly.

When Phantom made a small sound, Maddie looked over at him and her breath seemed to constrict. She was scared. Not for her though, for him. It was weird, but something told her that if she stepped aside she would really regret it. She felt like she was protecting one of her own children. Call it maternal instincts, but the ghost even looked like her son a bit. She turned back to Plasimus.

"Let him go." She demanded. Plasimus looked at her as if she was crazy. Even Danny opened his eyes in surprise. There was no way Plasimus would let him go! Here he was as vulnerable as ever, and even if Plasimus wouldn't finish him off in front of his mother, he would probably just take him in to the next room and do it.

Finally Plasimus shook himself out of his speechless state and pushed her aside. Once again firing up and ghost ray. "NO!" She screamed and pushed him away. "Please! Just let him go… for me…" She said, sensing that she had some sort of power of the ghost.

She looked down for a moment, did her best to tear up the way her son used to, and made her eyes wider, and more sad. When she looked back up, she looked right into Plasimus eyes with her best puppy dog look. Vlad's breath hitched in his throat. He looked deep into her eyes for a moment fighting an internal battle. He grinded his teeth together for a moment, and then he seemed to deflate. He couldn't bear to see the woman he loved in pain. "Fine." He stated, surprising everybody in the room.

Not wanting to talk about his scarce act of mercy, he roughly picked up Danny, causing him to gasp in pain, and flew out of the secret dungeon. Once outside and out of Maddie's sight, he threw Danny down on his lawn. The wind knocked out of him, Danny slid to a stop a few feet away with his eyes squeezed shut.

"And don't try to come back." Plasimus warned, then he flew back in to his castle. Lying on his archenemies lawn, Danny's heart rate slowed, his breathing became deeper, and he finally gave in to the darkness that was swarming his vision.

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TBC….

Kinda a cliffie, kinda not. You decide. So yeah. I typed all of this a while ago, but my policy is to always be a chapter ahead of my update, so yes, I mostly have next chapter written out too, and it's starting to get interesting no? Well for some foreshadowing that's the last time Vladdy will show any mercy.

School's hard (understatement of the year), so that's why it took so long to update.

Sorry! I promise that the next one won't be so far off in the future.

And of course, reviews help me get motivated to actually sit down and type.

**Thanks to sciencefreak330, purrbaby101, mystery writer5775, and Queen S of Randomness 016! **


	5. Chapter 5

Hey! I updated on time! HOORAY ME! Well I am back at school now so this might not happen this quickly again…

LAST CHAPTER: Danny flew out to get his mom back, but Vlad got a hold of him and they fought, and by the end Vlad beat his butt, and Danny passed out on the lawn…

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When he first started to wake up he brought up his arms to rub his eyes, but they felt like lead weights beside him. He finally opened his eyes and found himself looking up at a beautiful Wisconsin sunset. Immediately he sat up, remembering everything in an instant. He quickly discovered this was a bad idea when suddenly it felt like the world was spinning. He blinked a few times and forced himself to shake it off.

He slowly got up after that and groaned, rubbing his cheek tenderly. He didn't need a mirror to see he had a bruise. He looked around. Vlad was nowhere in sight. Maybe he still had a chance… he decided to see if he could grab his mother and run off.

He threw his hands up in the air and silently went ghost, trying to remember when he reverted back human, and then he stealthy phased through the ground and in to the lab. He sighed in relief, still no Vlad. Then he tried to phase in to the dungeon but his head hit something very solid and a slight shock ran through him, enough to make him quickly jump back. What was up with him and getting shocked?

He looked back at the wall and noticed a green glow to it. He put his hand on it and the invisible ghost shield appeared again and he withdrew his hand quickly. He tried to think of what to do, leaning his back against a cabinet to help him stay upright.

That's when he realized that there wasn't much he could do. He was injured, and extremely weak and he didn't think he would survive another encounter with Plasimus. "Sorry mom." He whispered to the wall. "I'll come back, I promise." Then he flew through the ceiling and outside again.

Then he started the long journey home. It took him awhile, considering that he took a lot of breaks to regain his energy. About half way there, Danny looked up at the sun and realized something that made him freeze in midair. The sun was coming up, not going down. He swore and sped ahead. He was going to be in SO much trouble when he got home.

Finally, three hours later, he flew in to the ally behind his house and changed back to his Fenton form. He leaned against the wall and sank down so he was sitting, holding his burnt chest. He was dizzy with exhaustion and he didn't know how he was going to worm his way out of this situation. After a minute to regain his breath, Danny finally got up and quietly opened his front door. Nobody was in sight. He quietly closed the door behind him and tiptoed the first few steps in. Then he sighed in relief and dashed up the stairs.

Half way up his ghost sense went off, "Dan? Is that you?" Danny bit his lip.

'_Here it goes.'_ He thought. His brain felt too exhausted to deal with excuses. "Uhh- hi dad!" He said, putting on a fake smile and turning around to face his tired and irritated dad.

"Daniel Fenton where were you?" Jack asked in the tone of voice that demanded an answer. _'Oh no…' _Danny thought_. 'He's actually playing the father roll… I'm deep in it now…'_

"I- I was- sleeping over at Tuckers?" Danny almost asked.

"Wrong." Jack shot down. "I called him and he said he hadn't seen you since yesterday." Suddenly he noticed the bruise on his cheek. "Where did you get that?" He asked. Danny covered it up as if it would help. "Come down here. You and I need to have a little chat." He stated.

Danny sighed wearily and went back down the stairs and sat on the couch as his dad paced in front of him. "You had me worried son." He said calmly. "I was going to call the police if you hadn't come in right when you did." Danny shifted uncomfortably on the couch. "Where were you?" Jack asked boring in to his son's eyes.

Danny gulped, fresh out of excuses. "I- I can't tell you." He stuttered.

"Why not?" His father asked, almost sadly.

"I just can't." Danny said weakly. After a pause he added, "I will though. I'll tell you everything when the time is right. Just not right now." Danny said, looking anywhere except for his dad.

Jack looked at him for a long while. He didn't want to have his conversation with his son, especially with his wife gone… possibly in danger. He sighed and decided to go with his old tactic. Cut the crap, and get to the point… in other words: be blunt.

Finally he said, "Is it gang fights? Drugs?"

Danny nearly jumped, and looked up at him startled and hurt. Was that was his parents thought he was doing? "What? No! How could you even say that!?" He exclaimed covering his shock with anger.

"Well from where your mother and I stand all we know is that you are never home on time and you always have some sort of new injury!" His dad exclaimed, his voice rising. Another knife to the heart. Danny opened his mouth to reply, glairing at his father except Jack didn't let him start. "That and I know from that phone call that your in the league with ghosts!" He yelled.

This caused Danny to shut his mouth and his eyes to gloss over. "So what is it son?" Jack asked almost mockingly. "Robbing stores? Houses?"

Danny didn't say anything, but just looked at his dad. He didn't think he could say anything anyways. It was like adding insult to injury. He just nearly died trying to save his mother, and then his dad had to come and accuse him of being the thing he had been fighting against since the day he accidentally activated the portal.

Jack finally calmed down and sat down on a chair across from Danny, putting his head in his hands. He just wished he knew where his wife was. She handled these situations so much better.

Danny shakily found his voice. "Why do you and mom automatically assume that I'm the bad guy?" He started out, his voice quivering with masked emotions. Jack looked up.

"You guys don't know what I do with my free time." Danny's voice started rising. "What if I am actually giving up my sleep, my grades-- my _life_ for something good?!" Danny nearly yelled. "What if I am keeping it a secret from you guys for your safety? Huh? Ever think of that?!"

Suddenly Danny hoped off the couch and took a step towards the stairs, as if he was about to run up to his room and slam the door, but instead he quickly rested his hand against the wall and held his head. He moaned and sat back down on the couch.

"Danny?" Jack asked, now worried. He got up and briskly walked over to his son. "Are you okay?" He asked taking his shoulders and looking in to his glossed over blue eyes. Danny flinched at his touch. This worried him even more.

"I'm- I'm fine. Just got up too fast," Danny stated weakly, his face pale. Jack face showed that he didn't believe him.

"Do you need anything?" His father asked. He wanted to question him more, but now wasn't the time.

"A pain killer would be nice." He replied. Jack nodded and went off into the kitchen, searching for the medicine. It didn't take him long to find it. When he came back in to the living room with the pill and a glass of water, he found his son already passed out on the couch.

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When Danny awoke he was looking up at the posters of space shuttles on his bedrooms ceiling. He groaned and tried to sit up but suddenly a hand reached out and stopped him. He looked over and saw Sam with her hand on his shoulder looking at him worriedly. Even the simple motion of looking up at her made him dizzy.

There was a pause as Danny blinked a few times to clear his head. "What happened?" She asked quietly.

Danny checked the room carefully before answering. Then he sighed, and said bluntly, "Plasimus has mom."

Another pause. It took a moment for her to digest it, but then Sam blanched. "WHAT?!"

"He tricked her and is keeping her in Wisconsin, except she thinks that Plasimus is the one keeping her captive. She doesn't know Vlad is involved in this at all." He quickly explained, closing his eyes again.

"So wait… what did you do?" She asked, both suspiciously and worriedly, looking his bruised cheek tenderly.

"I tried to save her. But he found me. We fought and… I lost again." He said quietly.

Sam slapped her hand to her forehead. "Danny!" She exclaimed. "How could you be so- so-- " it was as if she couldn't find the right word. She finally gave up and took a deep breath, opening her eyes again.

Sam looked at him with a mixture of disapproval and worry in her eyes. She started again slowly. "Danny… you need to include Tucker and I in on your plans. You're not alone out there… we could've helped…" Sam stated gently but firmly.

Danny winced at what she said. "I know… I'm sorry. I just knew that you guys would think it was a stupid idea though… and I thought that it might work… so I decided to keep it quite." Danny sighed.

"What exactly was your plan anyways?" Sam asked suspiciously.

Danny chuckled dryly. "Get in, grab mom, get out and fly back. It didn't work."

Sam knew it was something like that. She barely contained a groan. "Obviously. You thought that Vlad would just let you take his captive and fly off into the sunset?" Sam asked sarcastically.

"Yeah… not so much now." Danny replied rubbing his eyes.

"See-- that's why you need us… so we can smack you when you have ideas like that." Sam punctured this with lightly punching Danny's arm.

"Hey!" He exclaimed, rubbing his arm. "It's not very nice to punch a guy when he's down." He stated, smiling slightly.

"Well you deserved that."

There was a pause, and Danny tried to sit up. He was incredibly sore. Instead of trying to make him stay down Sam let him try. Danny slowly shifted his weight to his hands and slid himself up, his eyes clouded over. Finally he stopped and leaned against the back of his bed, breathing deeply.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked, feeling guilty for stupid reasons. She should have known something was up when he didn't show up in school. Well… she did notice but by then it was already too late.

"I'll be fine once we get my mom back." Danny replied.

Sam grimaced in sympathy. "I don't know what to tell you Danny," she said quietly, "but I do know that we _will_ get her back." She stated, her violet eyes boring in to his light blue ones.

"We've got to make a plan, and get her out of there as fast as we can." Danny stated, tearing his eyes away from hers and looking back to the wall opposite.

"Not until you heal though. If you go back there again, I'm afraid he won't hold back." Sam quickly stated, still looking into his eyes.

Danny took a breath and answered slowly, "He pretty much flat out told me that he wouldn't. I thought I was a goner… If my mom didn't beg him I probably wouldn't be here right now."

Sam jumped at this. "You mean he actually tried to kill you?" She asked suddenly.

"Yeah… he said he gave up on me being his apprentice or whatever." Danny replied answering her unasked question and shrugging his shoulders, then quickly hiding a wince.

Sam caught it however, and her face darkened with worry. "Danny… are you sure you're okay?"

Danny finally looked over at her. "I'll be fine." He said, then he looked past her, "I'm just worried about what he has planned… especially with mom."

Sam grabbed his hand gently, making Danny look over to her. He blushed slightly and instead of looking at her, looked down at their intertwined fingers "I'm sure everything will turn out fine. We always pull through as long as we work together." She squeezed his hand, and Danny hesitated. Finally he looked up at her, gave her a slight smile, and squeezed back.

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Jack had heard all of it. He was about to go check on Sam and Danny but as soon as he got to the door he heard voices. He didn't want to drop in on their conversation, but he decided to listen… just in case.

He immediately felt bad… but when he heard what they were saying it made him decide that if he _didn't_ eavesdrop it would be a sign of a bad parenting. Who would walk away when realizing that their son was in danger?

In the past few hours Jack had learned that his son was involved with something much bigger than what he thought before. Much bigger.

Before he decided to check on Danny, Jack had been pondering what his son had said during their argument. He was sitting in the kitchen, staring blankly at the wall in front of him. _"What if I am actually giving up my sleep, my grades_-- _my_ life_ for something good?!"_ Jack shook his head, trying to decipher the message. But before he could concentrate on that another worrisome quote rushed through his head.

"_What if I am keeping it a secret from you guys for your safety? Huh? Ever think of that?!" _For his safety? What would his son be protecting him from? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

This was his conclusion. The only possible answer is that his son was sucked into the ghost hunting business. He was probably attacked more than average person because his parents were ghost hunters, and this is where the uncertainty comes in…. why his son was keeping it secret.

Possibility #1: His son didn't want to tell him because he was scared it would hurt his feelings.

Possibility #2: The ghost threatened to kill him and Maddie if Danny told about the ghost attacks.

Possibility #3: A ghost is possessing him to do things like rob stores, and making him keep it a secret and say that he's doing something good.

Possibility #4: Danny tried to do some ghost hunting himself, but got himself way in over his head.

Possibility #5: His son made up that whole speech and really is a druggie, or gangster, or robber etc.

He had no idea which one was more likely, because they all seemed equally impossible. He had to keep thinking back to the conversation to keep his theories in check.

In what seemed like an eternity later, he heard someone coming down from the top of the stairs. He stood up and went into the living room to see Danny limping down the stairs with Sam behind him, looking gravely worried.

"How ya feeling Danny-boy?" Jack asked sincerely.

"Better." Danny lied, going past him to plop down in a chair. "But I'm starving."

At this point Jazz walked in the door, and when she saw Danny, she seemed to relax a bit. "Hey Danny! Where were you last night?" Jazz asked, seeing what his cover story would be. There was a heavy silence.

"We're still discussing that." Their dad finally stated, causing Sam and Jazz to both shoot Danny a surprised look. Danny looked back with an expression that told them everything. The two girls barely prevented themselves from groaning. Danny didn't have a cover up story.

"Could you girls leave for a second… Danny and I need to have a little heart to heart chat." Jack said. Danny gulped. The girls gave Danny one last sympathetic look, then left the room. He could tell that they were standing just outside the door. He ran his hand through his hair nervously.

"Danny… I…" Jack sighed. "Can I say this bluntly?" He asked. He wasn't good at this kind of thing.

"Only if I can answer bluntly." Danny replied.

"Deal." Jack nodded. "I know what you tried to do yesterday."

Danny just looked at him, his face blank, but his eyes flashing one emotion to the next. Shock, curiosity, suspicion, disbelief, worry, nervousness... and they were all summed up in one word. "Really?" Said in a tone of "That's what you think."

"You tried to rescue your mother didn't you?" Jack watched his son's reaction with interest.

Danny jumped. He actually got it right. How much did he know? Danny tried not to panic. It didn't look like his dad was reaching for any of his ghost guns… His reply came out without thinking. "What makes you think that?"

It was actually a pretty good come back Danny decided. It didn't confirm it or deny it. He needed to know how much his dad knew.

"I—" Jack hesitated. '_Okay, blunt… got it.'_ I-" In that moment he realized how hard it is to admit you were spying. How was he to go about this? Bluntly? "I was passing in the hall way outside your room… and…"

"You eavesdropped." Danny finished for him, looking annoyed.

"Umm… yep that pretty much sums it up." Jack shrugged, trying to act oblivious to the look he was getting from his son.

Danny took a deep breath and rested his hands on the table. "How much did you hear?" He asked seriously.

"Everything." Jack stated as blunt as it could get.

Danny sighed again and looked up at his dad. "Are you mad?" Was the first question that popped out of his mouth.

Jack looked at his son; lines of worry were etched into his face. No teenager should have those. "I'm a bit mad… so yeah." Jack stated. "You could have included me in the plan. I'm the one with ghost powers after all."

"I—yeah-- but…" Danny suddenly thought about something he hadn't thought about it a long time. It was really the perfect time. He could tell his dad about his powers. The thought hit him with such force that it caused him to immediately close his mouth and lapse into thought. It would be so much easier… but then again, his dad still didn't have a reason to like Phantom.

But then again, it was the best possible time. His dad was experiencing the same things as he was. He had realized that half ghosts exist, and that they don't have to be evil. He could get it over with.

Jack was looking at his son curiously. He didn't read emotions very well, but he knew that his son was experiencing a raging internal battle. He decided, for once, not to interrupt.

"Dad—I—" He stopped and shut his mouth. It was as if he had lost the ability to speak. Maybe Jack would get some answers if he stayed quite. He waited patiently for his son to straighten out his thoughts.

Danny started out slowly. His dad's answer was crucial. He tried to control his shaking hands.

"What… What do you think about Danny Phantom?"

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TBC…

Ok so that is like the mega cliffie. Sorry… I missed them. So you people need to review to see what happens.

**Thanks to mystery writer5775, Queen S of Randomness 016, purrbaby101, and Dawn Gray Manson! **

I loved your reviews! haha… and mystery writer5775's review made me laugh, because it was indeed a very, very stupid move for Danny to make.

I'll keep on writing if you keep on reviewing! 

Zizzy333


	6. Chapter 6

Updated!

LAST CHAPTER: Danny flew out to get his mom back, but Vlad got a hold of him and they fought, and by the end Vlad beat his butt, and Danny passed out on the lawn.

Sam wakes him up and have heart to heart.

Then Jack and Danny have a heart to heart ending with…

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"What- What do you think of Danny Phantom?"

At that he heard a gasp from behind the door and Jazz and Sam stumbled out, looking at Danny like he had grown an extra head. There was a heavy silence, missed completely by Jack in his confusion.

Jazz was the first to regain her bearing, and she stood up straight and cleared her throat, nudging Sam in the ribs. Sam snapped out of it as well but the two continued to stare at Danny. "Uh- Uh- sorry… We were just… hungry so… we'll just grab some of these apples and… leave. Yeah we'll leave." Jazz stuttered out, quickly grabbing two apples and grabbing Sam and backing out of the room.

Sam looked behind her desperately. "Danny! I—" She thought quickly. "I would offer you something to drink… but I wouldn't want you to _spill _anything. Unless you _wanted _to _spill_ it… then… well… good luck." The door swung closed behind her.

Jack looked at the door for a second and said, "Wow Danny-boy, I know you like her-" the door jingled as someone applied too much wait leaning on the door- "but you have to admit… she can be a bit strange sometimes." Danny blushed so badly that he was sure his face would melt off.

"Daaaaaaad!" Danny whined, casting quick glances at the door. There was a pause.

"So what were you saying son?" Jack asked. "Something about the ghost-kid?" Danny took a deep breath, willing his blush to go away. This is not the way he saw all of this happening.

"Yeah. I asked what you thought about him." Danny repeated. Was he really going to go through with this?

"And people thought that I had add! This proves that it's generic!" Jack said completely confusing his son. "Apparently the word 'add 'can mean 3 3 …" Jack quickly counted his fingers. "6, and it can mean that you can't focus on one thing of a significant amount of time. You see when I was young and in class I could never pay attention for longer than—"

"You mean ADD?" Danny asked.

"Yes, that's how you spell it. A-D-D. Add." Jack said, with a look that said '_duh._'

"No… dad…" Danny sighed. "Never mind." Jack looked confused. "This is important. What do you think about Danny Phantom?" Danny said putting them back on track.

"He's a ghost. He's evil." Jack stated right off the bat. Danny looked a bit deflated. Jack looked at him suspiciously. "At least that's what your mother and I used to think." Danny perked up at this. "Why?" Jack asked, keeping to the blunt agreement.

"I- because- it's important to me. I actually know a lot more about Phantom than you think I do." Danny stated slowly.

Jack looked closely at his son, the wheels in his mind starting to turn. _He helps Phantom with ghost fighting… it's the only explanation. _He thought.

Danny felt like he was in a dream. He was actually spilling his secret to his dad. He always imagined it in the living room, with both of his parents, and Jazz there for moral support. They would have come to appreciate his ghost side, and they would be proud of him for going out there and risking his life for a good cause.

"I- I know something about him that only a few people know. Those reporters would be ecstatic if they knew what I knew, and I want to finally confine it in you… but you can't use this information against him. I want to trust you dad." Danny said.

Danny didn't know why he was going about this in third person. He was trying to ease into it gradually though, and he thought this was the best way to do it. His dad spoke up.

"You know you can trust me Danny-boy. I believe that Phantom is different from other ghosts. We- as in your mother and I- don't know if he's all good, but we've decided that he's not evil." Jack said, knowing that this might help Danny. He had no idea what his son was talking about, but he knew it was important to him, so he decided to respect that.

Danny smiled a genuine smile up at him. "And that's probably as good as I'm going to get from you guys." Danny seemed to shake off his nerves and started the process to revealing big secret number one.

"Dad… you can't tell anyone… and you can't be angry that I kept this from you… promise?"

"Promise." Jack nodded, even holding a hand over his heart. He was eager to learn this information.

"Phantom is like you. He's-" Danny gulped. This still wasn't even the big identity secret! "He's half ghost."

"REALLY!" Jack yelled, jumping up. "Gaa! I should have guessed that! That explains his abnormally not evil behavior! Half ghosts still have human emotions because they're not dead! They're just humans that have ghost powers! So he's good!"

Danny sank down in his chair in relief. From his dad's reaction, he could tell that everything was going to be okay.

"Do you know his human side? Are you guy's friends? I could apologize for hunting him and then he could give me proper training!" He paused. "Not that you're not doing a good job Dan… but to be trained by another half ghost with that kind of abilities would be awesome!"

"Do you know who his is? Does he go to school like normal kids? Does he have a family? How did it happen? Are there more half ghost out there?" His dad asked excitedly, jumping on the balls of his feet.

"Dad… I could answer all of those questions you could ask them just one at a time." Danny stated. He felt a weight being lifted off of his shoulders, and he felt light. He felt so happy that he felt laughter bubble up in his chest. He took a deep breath, and smiled. Everything was going to be just fine.

"Ok." His dad sat down, looking at his son intensely. "Do you know his human side?" Jack asked.

"I—yes." Danny said. He could have just said 'yeah- it's me!' but he was almost scared of his dad going into excitement overload. Once again he was going to sink into it slowly. Maybe dangle all of the clues in front of his dad until the question of 'is he you?' popped up.

"And he lives a normal life- well besides all of the Phantom stuff. He goes to school everyday, is normally late because of ghosts, and he goes home to not so normal parents, but he still loves them."

"What do you mean 'not so normal'? Who is he? Is it Tucker? I always knew there was something weird about that kid… " That's when a new question popped into his head. "Do I know Phantom's human side?" Jack was kind of getting in to the game as well. He wanted to guess it before Danny gave out the name. It was kind of like a really, _really_ fun game of twenty questions.

"No… it's not Tucker." Danny said, actually letting out a bark of laughter. He could have sworn he heard snickers from behind the door as well. "And yes, you do know him."

"How well? On a scale from one to ten?" Jack asked. It was now completely a guessing game.

"Besides not knowing he is Phantom… probably an… eight. You know him pretty well." He watched his dad's expression in amusement. He looked shocked.

"I don't know any of your friends that well…" Jack looked like it was starting to hurt to think. Danny knew it would come soon… just a few more hints. This was totally not how he imagined his secret coming out.

Then something shattered the mood completely. Both of their ghost senses went off. Jack was too shocked by his own to notice Danny's. "I think I've realized what that means… that means there's a ghost nearby." Jack stated, jumping up and looking around the room.

"And I don't think it's Phantom." Danny added in, looking around the room. They both knew that Plasimus wanted Jack dead, and the idea of it being Vlad entering the room weighed heavily in their minds.

There was a moment of suspense, where nothing happened. Suddenly something streaked across the kitchen, and it happened so fast Jack didn't even have time to react. Danny however, not only dodged the ghost before it body slammed him, he also was able to catch it by the neck and saw what Vlad expected to get the job done.

"Oh come on." Danny said rolling his eyes at the green vulture clutched in his hand.

"Vhat! You don't even know vhat ve've got!" The bird exclaimed in his accent.

"How threatening can you guys be? You have to be 3000 years old!" Danny exclaimed, but while he was distracted, another vulture body slammed in to Danny, sending him held over heals. He crashed into the wall, and the two birds flew up and hung menacingly over him as he tried to straighten himself out. Before they could attack, a green ectoblast knocked them into the wall.

"LEAVE MY SON ALONE SPOOK!" Jack yelled, already in ghost form.

Sam and Jazz ran into the room to see what was going on, looking panicked. They looked around wildly and then let out an audible sigh or relief. They thought that he was attacking Danny.

Before anyone could react to the fact Jack was in ghost form, the third bird barreled into him, sending him flying towards the wall. Right before they could hit, Jack went intangible and they phased through the wall. The other vultures got up and followed their fellow companion outside.

Danny stood up, and without his battle cry, transformed, and said, "I didn't get to tell him." Sam and Jazz nodded.

"We know. We were listening the whole time." Jazz stated, and Sam blushed lightly.

Danny wondered why she would blush, until he remembered the awkward moment his dad had unknowingly caused. He felt his cheeks heat up, so all he did was nod and jump in to the air.

He quickly followed the bird's path outside and found his dad not fairing so well, but better than he had with the box ghost. Danny was still weak from Vlad's attempted murder, and he didn't want the fight to take long. It had been less than an hour from the time he got up. Just flying made him winded.

Before joining in on the battle he caught his breath, and then yelled, "C'mon! Why don't you pick on someone closer to your own size?" He then expertly took aim, one eye closed, and shot an ghost ray from his hand. It was a hit, and one of the birds fell.

Jack had stopped struggling against the birds and instead looked at Phantom in a new light. So he was actually good… and he noticed something else right off the bat as well. He seemed hurt. Jack could tell from the times he had seen him fight, and the times he had fought Phantom himself, that he was going a lot slower than usual.

Suddenly the ghost vulture slammed him into the house opposite theirs and so he tried to shake the bird off. However the bird just wouldn't be shaken. He kept dodging all of his punches and kicks.

"Come on old man! I am three thousand years old and I am still quicker than you!" The bird mocked, in an accent that sounded like Dracula's. Jack narrowed his eyes and tried to get at the bird so he could wring it's neck, but it kept slipping through his fingers.

Danny wasn't doing much better. The bird he had blasted down had gotten back in and joined his brother in the fight against him. Danny could tell that these vultures hadn't sat around for three thousand years. They knew how to dodge all of his attacks. Danny grinded his teeth together in frustration, and he felt himself slowing down.

"Why won't you just stay still!" Danny groaned. One of the vultures decided it was high time for another body slam, and hurled himself at Danny. Instead of dodging the blow, Danny took it, but made sure the bird didn't get away. He grabbed the green ghost and quickly flipped in the air so the vulture was the first to hit the wall.

With a crush Danny stopped, shaking his head to clear the stars that popped up and grabbing for the thermos. The ghost was still stuck to the wall. Danny quicly pushed the "capture" button and the bird screamed as he was sucked into the blue vortex.

Danny capped the thermos with a satisfied smirk, and in a moment he had acquired from his ghost fighting experiences, he heard the faintest of wings fluttering. He wouldn't have heard it unless in was in full out battle mode. In less than a millisecond, Danny dodged to the right, and right after he did that, the second bird crashed head first into the wall.

With the press of a button, the second bird was trapped in the soup container. Two down one to go.

Jack had been fighting this bird for what seemed like hours, but was actually a few minutes. Jack felt the places he had been slammed into and he knew he would be bruised tomorrow. Jack let out a roar of frustration as the bird dodged every single move he had, and suddenly something happened that he didn't expect.

He hadn't noticed his body starting to glow brighter, but as he screamed his built up frustration, the feeling seemed to condense into something solid and before he could even blink, his glow exploded outwards, sending a shockwave through the street. The vulture went flying, as did Danny who was only a few feet away.

Danny crashed back into Fenton Works and quickly went intangible before he could hit the wall. He zoomed through the kitchen, through the living room, and not holding his intangibility any longer, crashed into the stairway, and tumbled to the ground. Familiar blue rings washed over him as he held his head.

"Danny!" Jazz and Sam, who had been watching through the window, quickly ran to Danny's aid. "What was that? Was that…"

Danny was about to nod, but realized that wasn't going to make his head feel any better and instead said, "Yeah… that was dad." Danny jumped up and ran over to the window, trying to forget about the headache that was coming on. His dad was on all fours on the street.

Danny transformed, and without a word flew out of the house and over to him. "Da—" Danny hesitated, and quickly decided _'not now'_ "Jack! Are you okay?"

He kneeled down next to him, his hand grabbing his shoulder so his dad would look up at him. Danny was shocked to see his dad looking panicked. "W-what was that?"

Danny sat back looking over his dad curiously. "I don't know." He answered honestly.

"Did that really come from me?" Jack asked.

"Yeah… you must have been pretty angry at that ghost." He said, smiling crookedly. "Where did he even go anyways?" Danny scanned the area and saw it a block down the road, trying to take flight. "Be right back." Danny stated, and flew after it.

The ghost looked panicked and was talking to himself, and Danny went invisible to see what he was saying.

"This is not good! This could ruin our plans! Oh the boss is going to kill me! I have to get back and tell him…" The bird breathed, hobbling down the road awkwardly.

Danny chose this moment to appear in front of him, waving his finger as if he was scolding a toddler. "Now just where do you think your going?" Danny asked in a baby voice. The bird squawked and stumbled back, feathers flying everywhere. Danny smiled and swiftly sucked the vulture into the Fenton thermos.

Then he turned around and saw his dad starting up struggle up, and she he flew back to him.

"Are you sure your okay?" Danny asked again, as he landed gently on his feet and walked over to him.

"Yeah—it just used a lot of energy." Jack said shakily.

"I know how you feel. It's amazing what adrenaline and frustration can do to ya. That's how I got my ghostly wail." Danny replied good-naturedly. "So you got a new power. What are you going to call it?" Danny asked.

Jack rubbed his head. "Oh… I don't know… I bet my son would have some ideas… you see, he's good at that kind of stuff…" Suddenly Jack sprang up.

"Danny!" He exclaimed.

"What?" Danny asked.

Jack looked lost for a second. "Not you… my Danny… I just left him back in the kitchen! There could be more!" Jack started to rush back into the house, but he paused and turned back to Phantom, who was shooting him a strange look.

"Oh and by the way, I want to apologize for hunting you! I've realized your good now!" And with that Jack was back in the house.

Danny did a face palm. "I should just tell him to put him out of his misery. Who cares if he goes into Oh-my-god-my-son-is-a-ghost shock." And with that he shot into the kitchen.

He got there before anyone else was in there, and his ghost sense went off. Danny just assumed it was his dad and transformed back to Fenton form. He rubbed his soar shoulder, and noticed for the first time that he was exhausted. His plan was to finish telling his dad his secret, take a nap, and then somehow save his mom.

That's when he noticed he had been in the kitchen for a while, but nobody came looking for him yet. Before he could think of what to do, a loud crash came from the living room. Danny jumped up and in a split second, was in the doorway, looking face to face at Skulker. Then everything happened very quickly.

Before Danny could react, he was in a net. Figures. Danny felt the familiar lightening that forked through his body as the net temporarily stunned his powers and he bit back his cry of pain. He immediately started struggling, but Skulker threw him in to the opposite wall, making Danny see stars for a few moments.

As soon as he recovered from the blow, Danny started struggling with the net again. He pushed, he clawed, he bit, he even tried to reactivate his powers, but the only thing it did was get him more ensnared.

Danny snarled. He was useless until his powers decided to kick back in. That's when he noticed his dad and Skulker were in battle. Jack wasn't doing well after his energy explosion, but luckily he had Sam and Jazz on his side, and Tucker was on the way with his PDA.

Danny decided he could still do his part, and plus it would get his mind off of the fact in was caught in a really uncomfortable position. "Hey Skulker!" Danny yelled.

"I'm kind of busy whelp!" The robotic ghost shot back at him, while dodging shots from Jazz and Sam with their ectoguns and his dad's ectoblasts, which improved greatly since he nearly shot Danny in the kitchen.

"Well you brought this upon yourself. You were the one who decided to trap me in this net instead of letting me fight!" Skulker didn't reply because at that moment Sam blasted him in the back. Danny shot her a smile and decided to continue on.

"You know… normally my policy is 'more fighting, less talking'--" Skulker down at him in rage.

"What are you talking about?! _I'm_ not the one who throws out all the witty banter! _I'm_ the one who always has to remind you that I'm on the hunt and _you're_ being hunt-- Gaa!" The robotic ghost cried out in pain and frustration as Jack shot a particularly powerful blast and knocked out one of his wings.

Skulker crashed back down to Danny's level and quickly whipped around and shot one of his bigger missiles at Jack. Danny was quickly learning not to make a ghost frustrated. Jack didn't have any time to react. The rocket exploded in front of him, sending him sailing to the other side of the room, and the house to shake.

A big chunk of the ceiling suddenly crumbled, right over Danny. Danny watched with wide fearful eyes as the ceiling fell in, right over him. "DANNY!" Jazz cried out, the first to see the situation. The chunks of ceiling crashed to the ground and sent up a huge dust cloud.

Everyone waited in a tense silence as the dust cleared, just to see Danny sitting right beside the wreckage, blinking. Finally he relaxed. "Phew," he sighed, and then started coughing as he inhaled a lung full of dust.

The silence broken, Skulker used the distraction to quickly shoot nets on the three spectators. Jack yelled as his powers were shorted out for the first time.

"Hey! Now we can all comment on Skulker's fighting skills!" Danny said, pretending to be overjoyed.

Skulker growled and picked up Danny's net and threw him across to the other wall. Danny groaned. "You like doing that, don't you?" Danny commented.

Skulker picked up Danny roughly by the arms to bring him to face level. "You. Are. The. Most. Annoying. Prey. I've. _EVER_. Had. To. Deal. With." The robot said between clenched teeth. With that he activated one of the biggest rockets Danny had seen from the robotic ghost, at it was pointed right at his forehead.

Jack started struggling with his net with new vigor, even though he was back in human form. There was a strained silence. Skulker was squeezing his arms so tightly that Danny thought his arms were going to snap, but he only glared back at him steadily as a response.

Then the missile fired.

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TBC…

Ok, another cliffie. I'm sorry, but they are just so much fun. This next month I've labeled "hell month" because I have so much to do… but I mostly have the next chapter typed out, and I also just finished up planning out the end of the story.

I have got to go do three zillion things… like memorize lines….

QUESTION: If you are in a musical at your school, tell me what it is and what your character is… just curious.

REVIEW please!


	7. Chapter 7

So I didn't update for 2 weeks, but at least it wasn't nearly a year, like my other story "Tornado." I'm hoping you realized that I changed my title and summery for something that fits my story more. "Taboo's." Ahh dramatic!! It used to be Changes, but it really didn't explain that much of the story.

You'll figure out why it's called Taboo's in time. Actually this chapter is an example.

**SUMMERY TO THIS POINT:**

Danny had tried to tell his dad about his alter ego until not only do Vlad's vultures show up, but Skulker as well. Skulker has them in a real bind, considering they are all in nets (that short out powers for a period of time) and Danny's is already weak from the fight he had with Vlad. So now Skulker has Danny cornered and a missile pointed at his face at this is where our chapter begins…

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Then the missile fired.

The explosion was so big that Skulker was thrown back, and the house seemed like it was trying to break loose from its foundation. Once again dust filled the room. Jack was the only one that cried out, fearing for his son.

Jazz and Sam knew he would have done something if he wasn't able to dodge the rocket. Sill, they watched intently as the dust and smoke cleared. When they could see through it, they saw that the wall was blasted in, and the kitchen was a disaster as well. Sure enough, they didn't see Danny.

Jack watched on hopelessly, his mouth hanging open. He just sat there and watched his son get blasted. His mind was numb. There was nothing left… no… he was he some where in the kitchen… just out of sight. His breath seemed constricted.

Suddenly something blocked his vision. He looked up to see the robot ghost smiling down at him, a crazy look sparkling in his eyes. A gun- just a plain gun- popped out of his chest. Jack gulped.

Before Jack could even think of a plan, the ghost was blasted to the side. Jack looked up to see his son glairing at Skulker, perfectly fine. A smile lit up his face with relief, but then looked at his son closely. Jack watched him with interest… he had never seen Danny like this before.

He was in a perfect battle stance, the one Jack had to think about in order to get in to… and Danny's breaths were controlled and even. He seemed oddly calm for someone glairing so intently, and his hands were curled into fist, so he was taking the offensive, and for some reason… his hand was smoking.

"You were sent by Vlad, weren't you?" Danny growled.

Skulker got up. "Obviously… otherwise I wouldn't take an interest in your family… I only want your pelt."

Danny and Jack made a similar face. "So gross." Then he was serious again. He took a deep breath and turned to his dad.

Their eyes met, one worried gaze meeting another. "I was trying to tell you…" Danny started, his voice quite. There was no turning back now. "But that was before we were attacked by this- this army of ghosts," Danny blurted, his irritation shining through for a second. It quickly went away and he strangely felt a calm wash over him.

Then Danny realized he wasn't calm, he was numb. " … so I might as well show you." He finished, not breaking eye contact, his brain on automatic mode. Skulker decided to wait to see what would happen. "Dad…" Danny said, closing his eyes for a moment.

Jack blinked and swore he felt the room temperature drop. He shivered, not only because he was suddenly cold… because he had a strange feeling he had never experienced before. It took him a while to figure out what his body was telling him.

He felt like he was in the presents of something powerful… so powerful that he had to resist the urge to start tearing at the net in a panic. Then he realized that the panicky feeling wasn't only coming from the strange presents… some of it was coming from the tone of his son's voice. He knew that what ever his son was trying to tell him it was important. So important it made him feel a bit apprehensive… did he really want to know?

And before another coherent thought could process, it hit him. He knew what his son was trying to tell him.

It was about Phantom.

It was about where Danny mysteriously disappeared too, and why he always came home looking like he was run over by several small vehicles. It was about why Danny was always so secretive, and why he had mysterious moods that were way beyond his years.

He had all of the clues, but he felt like he was still missing something rather important.

Then something else hit him. Jack didn't want to really want to know… he wanted to be peacefully oblivious like he used to be… he was about to get in way over his head and he knew it. Yet at the same time he knew that he would have to figure it out sooner or later. His son was holding a secret much bigger than he or his mother could have ever imagined.

Danny opened his eyes, and Jack immediately noticed the difference, and all he could do was gasp. They were no longer the bright baby blue eyes his son had inherited from him… they were green. Correction: _glowing_ green-- _Swirling_ green. He had only seen the green once before, and it was in his basement. _Danny's eyes were ghostly green._

"I would like to introduce you to Phantom."

Then familiar blue rings appeared around Danny's waist and the blinding light made Jack shield his eyes, but he didn't miss the transformation. He was struck speechless.

Danny's familiar white shirt and jeans seemed to rematerialize as something not as familiar, or in other words, into Phantom's black and white HAZMAT suit. His hair went from raven black to silver white, but his face and other features stayed the same.

Before Jack could draw a breath, Danny Phantom was standing in front of him, looking straight into his eyes for a reaction. Jack had none to give, except for shock. His mind seemed to have turned off. The silence seemed to squeeze all of the air out of everyone's lungs. Except for Skulker, considering he didn't have lungs. Because of this, the robot finally rolled his eyes and lazily shot a Ghost Ray at an emotionally overloaded Danny.

Danny cried out in surprise and went soaring into the kitchen. Normally he could have dodged it, but he was a bit distracted, to say the least. He flipped in air and skillfully landed on his feet, skidding to a stop before he could hit the wall. Trying to forget his dad, he took to the air, and shot a series of ectoballs as his robotic enemy. Three of them found their mark, causing Skulker to stumble back.

No longer able to fly, Skulker did his best in firing all sorts of missiles and rockets at Danny from the ground, most of which he was able to hit with an ectoblast to explode before it could come near him.

After doing this for a while, circling around the living room, one finally got passed Danny, and he was forced to put up a shield to block the blast, which was swiftly followed by others. Danny didn't dare drop his wall, because of the constant bombardment.

Quite suddenly the explosions changed color, and Danny started to feel dizzy and his shield became weaker. "What are you doing?" Danny yelled over the noise. "Vlad give you some new toys?" He mocked, meanwhile breaking out into a sweat.

Skulker paused, trying to think of a good come back. He gave up and shrugged. "Yes." He replied simply and continued to fire rockets. Danny groaned, and he felt himself sinking down to the floor. His shield was about to give out, and by the cocky smile Skulker was giving… Danny guessed he wasn't about to run out of ammo.

Then a piercing chirp resounded throughout the room, and at that moment, it was the sweetest sound Danny could have ever heard. Skulker groaned, and Sam smiled, realizing what was going on. Jack and Jazz were confused as to why the pair was smiling, but then Skulker looked on his arm and read out loud. "Disassemble robot suit."

Skulker did a face palm as buttons and lights started to flash on his suit. Before Jazz and Jack could say "Oh," His suit just seemed to die, and it slouched over. The room was silent. Danny gabbed the thermos that was strapped to his back and opened the cap, but then the room exploded into noise.

All of Skulker's armor crashed to the ground noisily, making everyone jump. Danny landed gently on the ground as The Ghost Zones Greatest Hunter's head rolled to his feet. He picked it to see two little feet kicking and squirming, trying to get out.

He pulled out the real Skulker and held him in his fist. He pounded on Danny's hand furiously, and Jazz had to clamp her hand over her mouth to stop from laughing. "You won this battle!" He squeaked in his real voice. "But you will not win the war!" The small ghost then started to laugh, making him sound like an excided squirrel on helium.

Danny gave him a weird look. "Ooookay then." He said. He aimed the thermos, and blinked, and he was gone. Only problem was Danny never pressed the "capture" button. He jumped. "Where'd he go?!" He exclaimed looking around the room wildly.

Suddenly exhaustion washed over Danny, his adrenalin finally dwindling down. He blinked a few times to clear his head and leaned against the wall heavily, moaning slightly. Everyone looked at him worriedly.

Tucker then burst in through the door, panting, but already explaining his delay. "My mom wouldn't let me –gasp- go until I finished –wheeze- my dinner so I had to –puff- run over here with a huge –pant- side ache but I tried to –huff- send over a command while running--"

Tucker finally stopped to gulp some air, resting his hands on his knees. Then he seemed to notice the pile of armor on the floor and the lack of fighting. "Oh- you guys caught him?"

"Yes Tucker." Sam replied coolly, rolling her eyes. "Now can you please get us out of these nets?" Sam asked irritably, starting to struggle with hers again. Meanwhile Danny caught his breath as well and stood back up right. He went over to help Jazz out.

Tucker turned around after helping Sam out of her prison and finally spotted Jack. He did a double take, and then jumped. He looked from Danny to Jack and decided to fall back on an old tactic. "Ahh! Ghost!" He said in a way that secured the fact that he would never be an actor. He started running, towards the door, but noticed the no one followed him.

Tucker had reminded Danny of the fact he would now have to face his dad's reaction. Everybody watched the father and his son, ignoring Tuckers frantic gestures behind Jacks back.

Danny slowly walked forward and helped his dad out of the net. Jack still didn't react, still too stunned to speak. His son… Amity's own hero. A superhero. One that risked his life every day to protect people he hasn't even met. There was a deafening silence. Danny broke it warily.

"So now you know."

It worked. Jack seemed to snap back into reality and took a deep breath as if he was coming out of a trance. He shook his head in disbelief. "We-" the words didn't seem to form. "I-" The connection between his mouth and his brain had been turned off. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I had no idea, son… no idea…" And in a second Jack had wrapped his arms around Danny in a tight bear hug. "This explains so much…" And Danny saw tears glistening in his dad's eyes, but he didn't feel embarrassed.

Danny felt a giant weight lift off his chest. A smile crept across his face, and he hugged back, closing his eyes. And he couldn't help his eyes from watering as well. This meant so much to him. So much. And his dad accepted him. He had always envisioned how it would go, and he never guessed it would end with him and his dad hugging in their half destroyed house.

Finally his dad let go of him and held him at arms length and looked him up and down. Danny was still smiling slightly. He had the same face, the same body structure, the same attitude… "How could your mom and I not recognize you?" He asked bewildered.

"Nobody else has…" Danny said and transformed back. Same Danny, different clothes, hair, and eye color. And no glow. Or echo-y voice.

"How did you get your powers?" Danny opened his mouth to reply, but he was already cut off. "How have you kept this a secret?" Danny closed his mouth again. His dad seemed to be speeding up. "How many ghosts have you fought? What was your most intense battle? Why didn't you tell your mom and I? We never hurt you did we! That would be bad…. How many people know? Who is that—" Jack was become excided again, and started asking questions nonstop. Danny held up his hands.

"Dad- I will tell you everything, top to bottom, in time. I will answer some questions right now… but I really need rest... I'm feeling pretty weak…" Danny stated, blinking several times.

Jack stopped and looked Danny over again, more closely. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his breaths were uneven, as if it hurt him to breath. Jack mentally took a step back and went into parent mode. "You're right. You need some sleep. How about you grab something quick to eat and head on up to bed. We can talk in the morning."

This surprised Danny. He thought his dad would never let him go until he had all of the answers… but he was glad. He thought he was about to pass out already. "Thanks." Danny replied tiredly but warmly.

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By the time Danny sat down at the kitchen table the next morning, he still looked tired. He had dark bags under his eyes and his movements were slow. Jack wasn't much better. He had barely slept the night before, as the weight of Danny's secret had finally pressed down on him. His son… Danny Phantom… it was almost inconceivable.

Just a week ago he had thought that Danny was just a normal teen with the 'loser' label at school, he thought he ran away from ghosts like all of the other kids, had some problems with his grades.

He had always thought Phantom's behavior was a little… off. He didn't seem to be trying to take over the world or anything… but he and Maddie decided that they shouldn't risk it. They thought all ghost were evil back then. But they had always known he was different.

Then they noticed that he would occasionally help them out… so they stopped hunting him. So much was different now…

Danny only stayed up for a little longer than usual. His dad knows- and he accepted him- and tomorrow he was going to spill everything… all the secrets, all the lies he had to keep… _everything_. That was an idea all in itself. He was only a little nervous. It didn't feel like anything compared to when he went ghost in front of his dad. In fact he was a little excided to get it all done with.

Finally Jack sat down at the table. "I just called the school. I told them you were sick and you were going to stay home today." He said, still just shaking off zombie mode thanks to the cup of steaming coffee sitting in his hands.

"Thanks." Danny said. There was a silence.

Jack looked over his son and a smile creped across his face, a proud, amused smile. Danny looked up at him. "What?"

"Oh nothing…" Jack shrugged, making Danny cast a weird look over his dad, but strangely enough the smile was contagious.

"What?!" Danny asked again, and felt a grin appear on his face.

"It's just… you're Danny Phantom!" Jack exclaimed.

"Yeah… so? You used to hate me, like a week ago." Danny replied.

"No! We actually never said that… we always knew Phan—you—ghost you was different. It just makes so much sense now! And it's a good thing! You're not robbing houses or in a gang or anything!" Jack thought back to their previous conversation, where he accused him of all of those kinds of things. "Oh." He said. Thinking back, Danny's reply to that made a lot more sense now.

There was a pause, and Danny looked over at his dad. "Okay then…" he said. "Well I guess I'll start from the beginning…" Danny started out.

"Well, it all started about a year ago… remember when the portal wasn't working? Well…" And thus Danny spilled everything: all of his fights, all of the irony, all of his fears... From his first fight with the Lunch Lady, to the Ghost King, and with some difficulty, even his evil future self.

Jack sat in awe listening to his son retell his adventures. It was as if he was listening to a story… a completely made up, but brilliantly written story, instead of real life. Even though Danny dramatically shortened his stories, it still took them a good portion on the day.

Jack would always have his input from time to time like, "you did what now?!" or "The ecto-suit?! Danny! You could have died!" or "Well I won't call you Dan anymore… and you're absolutely positive that future is not going to happen… right?"

But as he was telling his dad some of the stories, he forgot one piece of vital information. "So mom and I randomly came upon Vlad's castle, and that's when I realized that this must have been planned out- I mean- _dropped in the wilderness right outside of it_? Come on…"

"Wait… was Vladdie home? Was he able to help you out?" Jack asked sitting in suspense. Danny looked at him- shocked for saying that- until it dawned on him.

"Hoooold up. We need to revisit the collage reunion story. I think you missed a pretty huge plot point there…" Danny said, smacking himself for not remembering his dad didn't know yet. He would have to break this to him slowly.

"Okay…" His dad said, his eyebrows suddenly knit together.

"Dad…" He thought of a way to put it gently. "Plasimus… uh—is half ghost." Jack's eyebrows shot up, and sat straight in his chair.

"What?! Another one? How many of us are there?"

"Four counting You, Plasimus, Danni and I- wait we'll get there," Danny said quickly as his fathers eyebrows went even higher up his forehead.

"I've heard this before." Jack stated wisely, "You're trying to break news to me slowly. Remember: be blunt. Who's Plasimus?" Jack asked, leaning over the table to look at Danny quizzically.

Danny winced, and blurted out, "Vlad Masters." Jack didn't react at first, and then oddly started laughing.

"Vlady?! V-man?! Nawwww…." He looked at his son through his laughs, and sobered up at Danny's serious face. "You're serious."

Danny nodded slowly. "I'm sorry dad… remember the accident in collage? With the ecto-acne? That's how he got his powers. Now he is constantly out to kill you for revenge, to make me his apprentice… well not anymore actually, and out to win over mom."

Jack sank down in his chair as he took it all in. "I- I don't believe it… all of this time… kill me? Take Maddie?"

"And he's brutal… he is the one behind all of this. If he wants you dead then you need to be on guard." Danny informed seriously.

Jack sighed, and slowly stood up. "You hungry? I could use some fudge." He said, walking towards the fridge.

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As soon as Danny finished telling his story up to the present, Jack looked serious, tired, and something Danny had never seen before… old. Jack was seriously perturbed about Vlad having his wife. "We need to make a plan." Jack stated. "And a better one than just charging in head first…" He sent a pointed look at his son. Danny smiled sheepishly.

"Flying all the way to Wisconsin is a bad idea… it really tires you out, and then we would be playing right into his hands." Danny said.

"That and it could endanger Maddie while she's captive." Jack added. Danny nodded in agreement.

"But we have to get her out somehow, and by now Vlad probably has put up really good defense mechanisms." Danny lapsed into silence. "What the heck is the fruit-loop planning? He can't keep her locked in there forever…"

"Did he give you any clues when you were fighting him? Did you get him to monologue at all?" Jack asked, also deep in thought.

"I tried… but it didn't work…" Danny closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, trying to think back to what seemed like such a long time ago. Nothing struck him as too curious. "I don't know… maybe…" Danny said more to himself than anyone. He sighed.

"It's okay Danny-boy." His dad reassured. "We just need to figure out his plan first… then we can start planning on how to rescue your mom." Danny nodded, but something kept nagging him in the back of his mind…

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TBC…

Okay! Not a cliffie!! What are my doing?!?! I NEED TO BE WORKING ON MY SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT!!! GAAHHH!!! … procrastination is a beautiful thing.

Here's an explanation of the summery and title to this point:

NEW TABOO'S:

Jack has over come some personal taboos.

One: he had accepted himself as a half ghost in previous chapters.

Two: he has now also accepted Danny for not only being half ghost, but also being Phantom.

OLDER TABOO'S:

Grace also overcame a taboo: being a friend with a ghost.

… but there will be some more to this.

And for the ancient taboo category… you'll just have to find out.

AND GRACE WILL BE IN THE NEXT CHAPTER!! WOOHOOO!! Sorry for leaving her out so long guys!

**THANKS TO REVIEWERS! **

**mystery writer5775 (x2!), purrbaby101 (x2!), MoonlightUmbreon, Queen S of Randomness 016 (x2!), Dannyphantomfn2, and Miss Montana **

Everybody that got x2 means that you didn't get thanked last chapter for reviewing. Thanks everyone!

Sorry for the long authors note! QUESTION: Have any cool past Science Fair projects?

REVIEW!


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